Students from all polys, unis and ITE to receive free credits to build apps with AI
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Republic Polytechnic's senior lecturer William Tan (front row, left) led an AI Product Bootcamp which taught students how to turn problem statements into production-ready code on Kiro.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF REPUBLIC POLYTECHNIC
SINGAPORE – Students from all polytechnics, universities and the Institute of Technical Education will be able to tap free credits to build applications with minimal coding, such as a website that helps one prepare for job interviews.
This latest initiative by Amazon Web Services (AWS) adds to a list of free or subsidised artificial intelligence programmes that have been rolled out in the past months, which boosts Singapore’s efforts to develop an AI-fluent population.
Learners above the age of 18 with a valid tertiary e-mail address will be eligible for 1,000 free credits to use Kiro – a development platform built by AWS that lets users create apps with prompts in natural language.
Students from Republic Polytechnic (RP) have led the way in adoption by using Kiro to build their final-year projects since April, after the school signed a memorandum of understanding with AWS in 2025, said the firm in a statement on May 6.
“Using Kiro is not just about speeding up development but also teaching students to think systematically and build reliable products,” said Mr William Tan, senior lecturer at RP’s School of Infocomm.
For instance, instead of instructing Kiro to build with a vague prompt, a student building an interview preparation app would be prompted to be specific about goals, user workflows, target users, features and the design interface.
This will include documenting necessary steps, such as a login and a profile page, an interview page, a microphone button to allow users to record their response, and a results page with a qualitative analysis of their performance.
“Students who plan well build more efficiently, and get more out of every credit,” said Ms Elsie Tan, AWS Singapore’s worldwide public sector country manager.
She added that the credit model and methodology encourage users to think deeper and build more from what they have been given. On average, 1,000 credits will be enough to take students from their instructions to a minimum viable product.
The result is an application that a development team can maintain, as the brief, design decisions and test criteria are on record in the form of a blueprint, said Ms Tan.
The credits are available to students taking modules or courses that can benefit from the use of Kiro, said AWS, which added that this is an opt-in exercise that requires educators to apply on behalf of their students.
For instance, this includes polytechnic lecturers who want their students to tap Kiro to build a working app prototype for their final-year project.
Instead of reading reports manually, one team of RP students have used Kiro to build a platform that tracks and analyses the performance of education-related projects globally, as part of a final-year project.
“It highlights which initiatives are performing well, and where improvements may be needed,” said group member and business information systems student Balerie Lim. “The system helps to save significant manpower hours to present insights in a clear, accessible format that policymakers and organisations can easily use to make more informed decisions.”
While the focus would have been on writing code previously, her team is now able to prioritise dissecting the problem before jumping into creation, said Ms Lim.
Without Kiro’s development abilities, going from proof-of-concept to maintenance within the typical 13-week period for final-year projects would have been challenging, said Mr Tan, the RP lecturer.
The Kiro development platform allows users to build apps with minimal coding skills.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF AMAZON WEB SERVICES
This pilot initiative was launched at the AWS Singapore Summit, which was held at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre on May 6.
It comes on the heels of several initiatives that the Government and industry have rolled out in recent months to help Singaporeans gain confidence to pick up AI like a language, by building fluency through experimentation and consistent use.
From the second half of 2026, Singaporeans who take up selected SkillsFuture AI courses will receive six months of free access to premium AI tools.
Trade union NTUC’s members can also tap their benefits to receive up to 50 per cent in subsidies for subscriptions to more than 20 popular AI tools, including ChatGPT, Claude and GitHub Copilot.
From August, all Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduates will have full access to premium Google AI tools such as Gemini Enterprise for workplace automation, and AI Studio for rapid app prototyping. AI literacy lessons, which are currently taught only to computing students, will also be made mandatory for all NTU undergraduates.
