Neo Kok Beng
Singapore
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank the Minister of State for the reply. Our current framework of preventing external influences is primarily based on a couple of Acts or laws: the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act (or FICA), the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) and also OCHA.”
“(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We have all been talking about movies, but I would like to take a moment to talk about radio stations. As our society ages, seniors naturally want to listen to songs from a bygone era.”
“Maybe MOT would like to do that. I would also want to commend the initiatives, the innovations, for example, MPA, which is on PIER71, which creates a lot of innovations.”
“One of the things I am really concerned with is that, for this $2 billion, how can we help our company, our deep-tech ventures here, slowly move up to being "unicorns". I think that on average, it takes 10 years to build a "unicorn".”
“It is a tsunami of change and I support the Motion. As I have previously done in my previous voluntary life as a council member of Institutions of Engineer, Singapore, I am the one who actually proposed working with the Labour Movement to set up the Young Engineers Leadership Programme, including the advanced and the global.”
“However, before we reach Pier 47, that means at Pier 48, there is an emergency brake and maybe, there is an incident on board and our security takes action. If the passengers do not disembark and the train carries on, then I think it is in Singapore's jurisdiction.”
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“Maybe MOT would like to do that. I would also want to commend the initiatives, the innovations, for example, MPA, which is on PIER71, which creates a lot of innovations. I think that we should consolidate all these into maybe an agency for innovation within MOT from air, sea and land; and then put in aggressive funding and piloting such that this could be a pillar for our economy in the future. I will not suggest a sum, but I think such an endeavour needs strong support as it will allow us to create a new economy. So, my proposal is an integrated innovation agency under MOT, with aggressive funding, aggressive piloting and collaboration within the region for sandboxes and flight testing.”
“I think the imaginations and possibilities in the maritime and mobility industries or transportation industry for our people are infinite. And therefore, we really have to enable them to go and find these possibilities. What is the issue then? The issue really is that in Singapore, confined environment especially air and sea, it is very difficult for us to trial or pilot anything that is moving. Well, it is for good reason, risk management and also, not to affect our normal operations. For example, if we talk about the low altitude economy, which is the drone or the flying cars, it is actually very difficult to find any place in Singapore for us to do trials. And therefore, it is important for us to provide fixed sites, controlled sites for R&D. So, localised sandboxes both for sea, land and air; and then regional sandboxes so that trials for such craft, which needs longer distance, more complex operations can be done. I note that in the Nanyang Technological University when they are developing these flying cars, in Singapore, they do trials, they are tethered. But when they need to do free-flying, it was reported that they go to Germany. Well, that is quite far away. Should we or can we explore options of having such regional trial sites with the neighbouring countries? I note that Malaysia just announced its low altitude economy plan by the Transport Minister, by the Malaysia Prime Minister last week and that they are also proposing sandboxes. They have a lot more space. Indonesia also has a master plan for the other alternative means for low altitude economy called advanced air mobility and therefore, it is an opportunity for us to partner with them to allow or partner such that our companies can go there and do longer-distance flight trials or these testings.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, I declare my interest as a deep tech innovator and entrepreneur. Once upon a time, I had a power pressure craft licence, a pilot licence and, of course, a driving licence. That does not make me a seal. But of course, it piqued my interest in mobility solutions and so, I spent quite a bit of time working in these sectors. For the Minister for Transport's information, I got my flying licence on my very first test but driving cost me five tests. Which means our road traffic regulations are very tight. The transportation or mobility sector is a very important area or sector or industry for Singapore as a sea hub, air hub. And so, I would like to focus on innovations and to support the entrepreneurs of deep tech ventures, especially, right now, where with the advance of AI, autonomous technology, drones, this has become a fertile field for us to create many possibilities for our industries in the mobility sector. But there are actually issues that we face. I note that the wing-in-ground (WIG) craft brought in by ST Engineering known as the "air fish" that floats above the surface of the water. It is now in operation. But however, it takes quite a bit of time. We know that the craft existed for many, many years, but it has been tested overseas and then after that, once they are ready and it will be brought back to Singapore. I like to compare this against two aerospace engineers, who are from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, America, and they are aerospace engineers trained in drones and trained in AVs, and they founded this company called Regent Craft, founded in 2020. Today, they have commercial orders of $20 billion.”
“(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We have all been talking about movies, but I would like to take a moment to talk about radio stations. As our society ages, seniors naturally want to listen to songs from a bygone era. The problem, however, is that they are currently unable to listen to dialect songs due to existing restrictions. I wonder whether we might consider designating one of our six radio stations to play songs from the olden days – perhaps with around 50% in Mandarin and the remaining 50% in dialects. In this way, we can better look after our seniors by allowing them to enjoy their favourite songs in their leisure time. I must confess, though, that I am not much of a listener myself.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank the Minister of State for the reply. Our current framework of preventing external influences is primarily based on a couple of Acts or laws: the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act (or FICA), the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) and also OCHA. These are, in the view of our population, pretty much reactive in nature. I believe there are also proactive measures. The population looks at it as what we do after the events have happened. The question is, how effective are they and how do we measure this effectiveness? Is the Ministry exploring more preventive measures compared to these slightly more reactive measures? What are the programmes or initiatives that are preventive in nature and again, how effective are they? Specifically, how to educate or train or inoculate our residents from believing or disseminating such malicious influence?”
“One of the things I am really concerned with is that, for this $2 billion, how can we help our company, our deep-tech ventures here, slowly move up to being "unicorns". I think that on average, it takes 10 years to build a "unicorn". So, in the near term, would we consider a possible dual listings, maybe not in the $2 billion category, but maybe in either the small cap or slightly higher than micro-cap, for them to list here and then transition into Nasdaq? So, those are the possible options that we can explore for companies based here or developed from our RIE 2030.”
“First, will the Government target a certain percentage, in terms of quantity and market cap, for deep-tech companies as part of our new listing companies' landscape, such as to build up a hub of technology and innovation? Based on what we have right now, it is not really big enough for us to have a lot of companies that are "unicorns", grown generically from Singapore, we might have to attract a lot more from the region, or as far as China, or perhaps US. So, what are the strategies? What are the competitive advantages and benefits to attract such deep-tech companies overseas to list or to join the GLB? Will we be encouraging special purpose acquisition companies for GLB? For example, in my trade, in the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) or flying car areas, there are two companies: one is Joby Aviation, and one is Archer Aviation. They listed in 2021, on either NYSE or Nasdaq, as special purpose acquisition companies, before they have a certified product. So, it is pre-commercialisation. When they are listed, they were about $6 billion. At the end of the hype, they were down to $2 billion, probably $3 billion. But now, with the products being on the way to certification, they are probably worth about $12 billion. Do we have the policy to stomach that, losing but very high valuation, because of very high potential, and highly scalable? So, when it comes to all these highly scalable companies or tech ventures, would you consider a special pathway for such pre-commercialisation, deep-tech companies, especially in pharma and biotech. And biotech is one of our key R&D areas in our RIE 2030 plan.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to declare that I am a technology entrepreneur, I invest and create technology ventures. The GLB and the link-up with Nasdaq is a really good move. For technology entrepreneurs, the Nasdaq is like a Mecca, dream land, where we go and do listings and if we look at the Magnificent Seven, starting with the letter "A" in the alphabet, which is Amazon; Apple; Google; Tesla; Meta, which was Facebook; Nvidia – they are among the top capitalisation of Nasdaq. So, tying them brings our exchange into a good situation or environment for a very tech-driven future. As of May 2026, I did a check, there are about more than 40 companies listed in Singapore that are more than S$2 billion in valuation, primarily in financial services, quite a bit of them in Real Estate Investment Trusts and a couple of them in industrials and engineering. The market is dominated by players including the banking services, such as DBS Group, Singtel and ST Engineering. The capitalisation of the financial services in our stock exchanges is about 40%; 20% for real estates; for IT, 5%. So, are we going to maintain that? Or do we also want to build ourselves as the next Nasdaq, where we can actually have more tech and innovation-driven companies on our exchanges? And if we are looking into the future, with our Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) investments, and all the investment in technology and R&D, I believe that we can actually try to move into that direction. The GLB is a new regulatory framework and I hope that it enables high-growth companies, especially deep tech, such as biotech, med-tech or innovation tech-driven company, to do their listing here. Sir, $2 billion is quite a tall order. There are a couple of questions that I would like to ask.”
“It is a tsunami of change and I support the Motion. As I have previously done in my previous voluntary life as a council member of Institutions of Engineer, Singapore, I am the one who actually proposed working with the Labour Movement to set up the Young Engineers Leadership Programme, including the advanced and the global. I believe that the engineering institutions and the professional institutions could work with the labour unions to certify all such programmes for career pathways for the workers.”
“The robotics AIs are really useful so that we can cover things that Singaporeans do not want or are probably not so suitable to do the job. The other projects that I am working on is imaging, using AI for magnetic resonance imaging. We will talk about it in some other time. The issue is that the workplace experience is now changing quite a bit. So, do we, or our staff, or our existing people, or PMEs, or workers have the skills for them to carry on in the job. I am glad actually that the Labour Movement has introduced the CTCs. It is a very good mechanism to bring AI into the workplace or working with the enterprise. And I am glad that there are such grants for it. But the question then is how do we define competencies? Some Members talked about the workflow redesign, process redesign – but how do we know that at the end they are competent? Where are the competencies level at the workplace? So, I think the new agency, SWDA, should be able to work together with the Labour Movement to define the competencies. But what else can we do with these competencies? Is it fixed to workplaces; so, one workplace, one company? Or is it portable? So, maybe we can consider involving the professional institutions, so that for each level or each competency level, whether it is stackable, micro-credentials, they are all certified and recognised by the industry. And therefore, it is portable for this person throughout his careers. AI is here to stay. Like most workers, initially, I was, I would not say sceptical, but unwilling to change my style. But now, I think I have got no choice. So, for the past one year, I have been working on it. Even my wife has to use AI to generate videos and pictures, although she is an artist, she likes to draw – but it has become part of her life.”
“We can look at it from two angles: one is this company is supremely productive; the other thing to look at is, we have five jobs less. Which one would you choose? Well, if you are the CEO, you know what to choose. If you are the NTUC Secretary-General, I am not so sure. So, I asked the next questions. He happened to be interviewing potential staff for his expansion, and so I ask him, "How do you find this guy who is doing his Masters in computing? Is he up to par?" And the answer that came back is, "Well, based on what I discussed with him and his answer shows he is two years behind the current technology". Two years behind and I was like, wow, so when this guy graduates, maybe next year, what is going to happen to him? Technology is always two years in front of him. And therefore, that means, do we put this guy into the real environment, which is basically internship, on-the-job attachments, or this person when he graduates, he really needs to speed up on the current competencies where the AI technologies are moving so fast. So, really, this is a tsunami. Personally, I get myself involved in the small little non-governmental organisations. We are working on one pet project, which is to monitor the senior citizens who are staying alone, so that if anything happens to them, we know. And we actually are using AI, because most of these senior citizens speak dialect dialects, so we are using robot companions, small ones, with the ability to understand dialects; and to monitor them. It is very good, because it is very difficult to get caregivers to go around monitoring and visiting these people. So that is one thing that the AI is really, really useful for.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I used to be a visiting professor of innovation policy at Harvard Kennedy School for 10 years and currently I am still a visiting professor of innovation management at Fudan University. AI is what we really call disruptive technologies, of which I spent my doctorate on. It is paradigm shift and when you say paradigm shift means it is shifting from one, or completely one industry to other areas that actually will destroy the old ways of working. Let me just give you an example. Last week, I visited at AI startup in the Science Park, so we were talking about collaborations on a couple of projects in media, and I only saw two persons in the room with a capacity of 20 persons. So, I asked the chief executive officer, "Where are all the staff?" They say, well, they never come to the office, but they are working. And I say, "When do you see them?" They say, "Well, I saw them last week when the network went down and there were no communications. As the broadband was down, they came back to check on their agents to see are they really working?" So, I asked, "How would you know they are really working?" The answer, "Well, actually, they produce the code at any time, all the way, 24/7." So, he has got agents, they are working 24/7. So, I said, "How do you measure the productivity?" And I asked one question, "How many tasks or jobs have you replaced since, or how many jobs have you done, the capabilities of people doing the engineers or the coding jobs, since last year, one year ago?" And the answer that came back is five. So, compared with last year and this year, this guy has agents working for him and he performed the task of five persons.”
“Which means that, when they are developing the modules or the courses, they must make sure that the professional institutions are involved and can recognise such courses and also the experiences that are being acquired. So, we must ensure that the skills we develop are the same skills that the industry rewards. By closely integrating the link between training and professional accreditation, we will provide our workforce with more than just knowledge. We provide them with a recognised professional career pathway. 6.31 pm”
“Professional institutions, whether it is accounting or corporate secretaries or insurance, they have well-defined pathway for career progression based on expertise and experience, or capabilities and competencies. Our employers recognise such industrial accreditation and certification for their skills mastery. As a SkillsFuture Fellow and a trainer, I have seen many talented individuals pick up different skillsets, maybe a little bit haphazardly, but struggle to have these skills "counted" toward the professional titles. If SWDA can align our skills frameworks with the accreditation standards of these professional institutions, then we will have turned "lifelong learning" into "lifelong career advancement". As an example, in engineering or in the Institution of Engineers, Singapore, we have three tiers – from chartered technicians to chartered technologists, to chartered engineers. Depending on the academic level, you enter at different stages, then you can continue to progress based on the experience you acquire and also the course and skills mastery that you achieve. It is not necessary for you to get a degree in order to become a chartered engineer. You can actually progress through your skills mastery through experience and expertise. So, let me give an example – we have chartered engineers in system engineering and we can have chartered technicians in railway. And so, you can continue to progress. I would like to suggest that SWDA partner closely with the professional institutions and the authorised training providers, which includes the universities and the polytechnics, to develop training programmes and courses that are aligned with professional accreditations.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to state that I am a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers and also an Adjunct Professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology. As a practising engineer and an active educator, I have dedicated my career to the mastery of professional skills and the transfer of industry relevant knowledge to the workforce or through the CET programmes. I have been in CET training for more than 10 years and I am honoured to be awarded the SkillsFuture Fellowship in 2023. The merger of SSG and WSG is a relevant one in our job-skills ecosystems. I think the more important thing is to make sure that the input, the training and the skills and acquisitions, link directly to the output which are relevant jobs and a high-value career. I would like to emphasise on certain points which we can make the links tighter. First, recognition. The recognition of the training or the skills is the currency of the labour market. For many specialised roles, a certificate of completion is not sufficient. My industry, like engineering or the built environment, and cybersecurity, all the industries that basically operate on a system of professional accreditation. In these sectors, specific jobs require certified training and accumulated experience that then result in formal industry recognition. Without this, even the most hardworking worker may find their career progression stalled because they lack the "professional currency" for higher-tier employment. That means that for the new agency, collaborations or the integration of the career pathway of professionals will be very important in the skills training.”
“Yes, very short. I would just like to ask the Minister what is the main reason of not having security on board? Is it because the timing of the ride is very short?”
“However, before we reach Pier 47, that means at Pier 48, there is an emergency brake and maybe, there is an incident on board and our security takes action. If the passengers do not disembark and the train carries on, then I think it is in Singapore's jurisdiction. But if, let us say, the train is being towed back to Bukit Chagar, then what will happen? So, those are the scenarios that are possible that we have to think through. Maybe we have to do dry runs on it to resolve it. In spite of this, this Bill is timely and I support the Bill.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Cross-Border Railways (Border Control Co-location) Bill is not just logistics, but it is very important to our trust and cooperation between Singapore and Malaysia. We noted that the RTS Link has 10,000-passenger-per-hour capacity. And with such heavy traffic, definitely, something is going to happen, incidents of any nature. I wish to address some critical areas for discussion. First, to address incidents, do we intend to post marshals or any of our Public Transport Security Command (TransCom) on board, or are we just going to depend on onboard cameras or station-based deployments to detect such incidents? Second, if we are deploying security on board, are they allowed to carry firearms? And if they are allowed to carry firearms, how is it being governed in terms of jurisdiction? Because, if you move from one, let us say, leave the Woodlands North Station, which is towards Johor, then basically, by the point of destination, then actually, we do not have jurisdiction on board. So, how do we address that and vice versa for the Malaysians? Third, when our security reach the Johor station, how does the security transit to the return trip because then, they will be carrying firearms, if that is the intention? So, I think all these need to be addressed carefully. I would like to pose a scenario, but the Minister has addressed quite a lot and actually improved my understanding, especially for the "nose" between Piers 48 and 47. But I think this scenario is good for discussion. In the case of, let us say, an "emergency brake" situation. Let us say a train leaves Bukit Chagar Station towards Singapore's Woodlands North Station, the destination on board is under Singapore jurisdiction.”
“And if you plant container ports or storage facilities or logistics centres in such locations, which is really cheap, and you can airlift it out, so you can actually store seasonal goods, you can store expensive value-added materials where the storage space is really, really cheap. Therefore, you can airlift it out as necessary. You do not need to build infrastructure. You do not need to build roads. Give us a completely different way of operating a business. So, moving facilities or bus or trucks or bicycles into the air is not just simply moving into the air. It is also coming with a different business model. Therefore, I would recommend that the National Research Foundation consider this to be a white space and really aggressively allocate some good money for the industry, and the universities and research institutions. Mr Deputy Speaker, Singapore does not design and build aircraft, but we have attained 10% of the world's MRO market. This is the chance for us to have aircraft design engineers, providing good jobs and also generating good economic output for our people.”
“So, I suggest that we should identify a location, whether in a university or a research institute, to have at least half a football field with at least 20 metres for flight test and everyone can go there – because I do not think we can afford a lot of such flight test centres. But we need to think out of the box because that itself allow us to just hover. So, a dedicated sandbox or flight test facility just allows us to hover. What is really important is the test flight, and that needs space. So, I think we should think without the box. What is without the box? It means if the box is Singapore, we should get out of Singapore, and therefore have a regional sandbox. And if you have a regional sandbox, that means our authorities have to work with the authorities in neighbouring countries for joint certification, joint flight test, joint recognition. I think that will allow us to harmonise our standards and allow us to work with different authorities and facilitate cross border drone flying or eVTOL flights. The last part is on the innovation capital. China is really good in the hardware. And where are we? In manufacturing, we will not be able to compete based on the manufacturing capacity. But we should focus really on what we do best – highly value-added jobs. I think that is in applications and also business models. For example, we can have purposefully built drones for oil spill disbursement. We can do it for our ports and it can be extended to many, many ports in the world. So, that is one application with the right business model. Another example, our neighbours have land, many plantations.”
“So, for this intellectual capital, we need to have more manpower and talent, and that goes to the universities or the polytechnics. Currently, there is no specialisation in such low-altitude mobility or advanced air mobility technology in Singapore. SIT does have a degree programme, but it is much more focused on aerospace. So, I think that we should look in detail for a diploma and degree with specialisation, I would not say a pure degree, but a specialisation, and have quite a bit of conversion programmes for existing engineers to convert or technologies to convert to drone technology or eVTOL technology. The infrastructure capital is really, really the important part here. When I talk about infrastructure capital, I am also looking at the regulations. CAAS has spearheaded the development of the advanced air mobility technology regulatory standards in Asia Pacific. That is a very good move. That is trying to harmonise our standards with the rest of the Asia Pacific countries. MPA has launched Singapore's first Maritime Drone Estate in April 2021. I understand that they are also upgrading it, but it is actually for a small payload. If we want to go for a bigger payload, I think we really need to have bigger test facility. Therefore, we have progressed, but we really need a turbo boost, with much more resources and aggressive plans. Therefore, a dedicated sandbox. Testing drones or eVTOL in Singapore is really difficult. You can ask for a field, which is like a football field, and then, you try to fly around, and then, the rains come and it is hot and there is no dedicated place for you to have your workshop.”
“Therefore, we really need to overcome these constraints in order to build a low-altitude economy or industry. How to do that? We first need to have a national initiative involving a triple helix of Government, industry and of course, the research institutes and universities. The current activities that we have right now in Singapore is, of course, ST Engineering. I used to be from ST Engineering. ST Engineering has a 100-kg payload logistic drone due for certification in I think 2028. My company, NEO Aeronautics, we have a 100-kg payload for sports and recreation, it is designed for the US Federal Aviation Administration market, Part 103. Actually, it is ready now. Does not fly in Singapore. NTU's 200 kg eVTOL prototype unveiled in 2026, led by Prof James Wang; and in the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), 80 kg moving to a 200-kg payload, led by Prof Victor Wang. We should have a strategy, Mr Deputy Speaker, a national strategy for low-altitude economy. I think the triple helix forming a consortium of the Government agencies such as CAAS, Economic Development Board, Enterprise Singapore, even the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and Singapore Tourism Board, can come in and make it much more comprehensive. I would like to talk a little bit about how can we then grow this industry. I think the first thing of growing any industry is really to have talents. We never had design engineers or design aerospace engineers in Singapore, but we have lots of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) engineers for maintaining aircraft. And we are glad that we achieved 10% of the total MRO market in the world – which means we can do it if we put our mind to it.”
“But actually, we can look at the air mobility business, that is, bringing people from one place to another on a regional side – Singapore and Johor, Singapore and Batam, a regional pathway that we can hop from one place to another. Singapore prides itself, as we do not have domestic destinations for aircraft, but we are international from day one. So, from the view of the low-altitude economy, we should be regional from day one. So, that is air mobility business, air tourism business. We do not have a lot of land. But actually, we do have interesting stuff that we can explore within Singapore. Typical areas for air tourism is like a bird's eye view of the Marina Bay and Sentosa. I was thinking that even the ports will be interesting to tourists too, with all the container ships floating. I also think that Mandai Zoo will be a great destination for us to look from the top. But when I was flying, with my Private Pilot Licence, one time, I did fly a little bit lower to visit the zoo without paying tickets. The other thing I think that is really important is air logistics, and cross-border logistics is really interesting. There are a lot of disruptive business models we can work on, and I will elaborate on this. What really are the challenges? Well, highly urbanised space, very good integrated logistics. So, we do not really need to do most of this stuff or in Singapore. Our island is slightly more than 700 square kilometres. Our airspace is limited. And for us actually to develop or test such a craft, I give you a recent example. In the Airshow, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) unveiled the design of an eVTOL that has done its initial hover test in Singapore. But beyond that, the trials had to be conducted in Germany forthe flight.”
“President Trump last year noted that the United States (US) has to catch up in the advanced air mobility and therefore, there was an executive order signed for the Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration to foster innovations. So, 36 states have already started to implement, whether it is between the airport or within the states. The other player is really aggressive – China. Two years ago, I went to the Suzhou Industrial Park with Senior Minister of State Koh Poh Koon. Someone handed me a name card, and the title is, Director of Low-Altitude Economy, Suzhou Industrial Park. It has gone down to such details. And now, what we have seen is that there are 30 provinces in China actively rolling out low-altitude economy solutions. I visited a couple of them in different provinces. I heard that in Guangzhou, there are already 15,000 low-altitude economy companies – dealing with parts, not really the full craft, but you can see the size. So, we can see how big the market is. The question is: what are the opportunities and challenges that Singapore can work on? Couple of years back, about maybe four years back, there is a report by a private company, no more in existence but when they planned to deploy here, said that in Singapore, there is an output of about $4 billion contribution to the economy with about 1,500 jobs. I do not know whether this number is valid, but I think it warrants some research to see how big this economy is. What are the opportunities? For Singapore is highly urbanised. And do we really need air logistics? Yes, within Singapore, but it is going to be difficult and the safety factor is one of the most important part.”
“We do not have a lot of huge drones in Singapore. Mostly, our drone pilots are actually Category A. So, advanced air mobility does not have a lot of presence in Singapore. Let us talk about how this low-altitude economy is important for Singapore. Just imagine that whatever is on the road, whether it is buses, cars, vans, trucks or bicycles, we lift it up like maybe 50 metres, 100 metres into the sky. Then, we have a completely different set of economy – and that is low-altitude economy. So, the definition of low-altitude economy, up to what height, actually, nobody knows. It depends on individual country. I used to have a private pilot licence. I can fly up to 10,000 feet in Singapore, but maybe we should not fly that high. But I think 1,000 feet or 300 metres is really good enough. It covers the top of all the buildings. This can generate new innovations – and I will explain it later – have higher or greater productivity and completely destructive business model. Let us take a look the market itself. The global drone market, of course, including military, is about US$30 billion today. And eVTOL, in the commercial side, is probably about $3.1 billion. There is precedent research in 2025. It is projected to reach $216 billion by 2035, with a compounded annual growth rate of 51.8%. If you look at the figures from different research agencies, they are all completely different: some will say $200 billion, some will say $100 billion. But you get the numbers. It is big. So, should we tap on this opportunity to develop a new innovation system, create better jobs and that is highly tech intensive?”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, yesterday I mentioned I was a telco engineer. Today, I am going to state I am an aerospace engineer. I actually work on the Super-Skyhawk A-4SU on Data Bus networking. But I am also a Fellow at the Royal Aeronautical Society. My topic today is on drone but actually, more than drones – the bigger drone or what we call the electric vertical-take-off and landing (eVTOL). First, I would like to declare I am the founder of an eVTOL company that designs manned drones or eVTOL in Singapore and is flying. So, what is eVTOL? Common people will say that it is a flying car, air taxis. Those are interesting stuff that make kids every excited, including adults, I think so. For this Motion, I will explore this emerging and high-growth market, dissect the opportunities and challenges that we face in Singapore and propose some strategies and also what initiatives that we can have into building an eVTOL industry going forward. The first factor is the emerging high-growth market. Sometimes, we call it the low-altitude economy. There are two terminologies that we need to be very clear here. It is the western perspective and the eastern perspective. The western perspective calls it "advanced air mobility". It is defined by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) five years back. The eastern perspective is we call it the "low-altitude economy", or in Chinese, "低空经济". I actually find that the low-altitude economy is more encompassing and that is why I use the terminology low-altitude economy. The drones that we see in Singapore and regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) for Unmanned Aircraft Pilot Licence or Drone Pilot Licence up to 25 kilogramme (kg) is Category A and above that is Category B.”
“Yes, my question simply means that whether the Ministry or WSG will consider developing or working with professional institutions for those particular professions or trade to develop programmes that are relevant directly to the industries, rather than looking at programmes that are developed by the universities or the other academic institutions?”
“Thank you, Sir. I would like to ask: in the case of a professional conversion programme, especially for engineers and technologists who are retrenched, is it possible to propose for the WSG to work with professional institutions to design programmes that are directly relevant to the industry, rather than take up courses that are designed by the universities or the polytechnics?”
“Thank you, Speaker. I have two supplementary questions. Firstly, we acknowledge that MSF has done a very good job in reintegration, the percentage is very high, for the foster children with their birth families. What I would like to ask is, what is the long-term reintegration rate? How long and how do we measure success of the reintegration? This is to ensure the long-term safety and well-being of the child. The other supplementary question is on, again, I want to follow up on the rights of the foster parents. What is the status right now for them to access the information of the foster children, especially in education, where they need to monitor but now they do not have access to. Also, they need to book the medical appointments online for the polyclinics or hospital and they do not have access. So, what is the status of this right now, as the focus is really for these foster children to be in the care of their foster parents for a couple of years?”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank the Minister for the reply on the telcos, especially on the stress tests and the redundancies. I would like to ask whether the telcos network exist independently, by themselves, or are interconnected with other telcos operators'. If IMDA in view of resiliency of our telephone network, would they consider regulations for them to work together, such that if there is any outage, there will be automatic switch-over from one telco to another telco, so that services to the subscribers are not disrupted? A simple example would be like we move to another country or we visit another country, and then we auto roam. I am a telco engineer, so I know a little bit.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the Bill. As the vapes or vaporisers are posing health hazards to our population, especially the youths and our students, I would like to seek answers to the following specific questions. What is the current situation of the peddling of vapes or vaporiser who are getting the students and our youths? Number two: what are the educational and awareness programmes for students going forward? Is it compulsory for students to attend such programmes and learn what are vapes and how bad it is? Question three: is there any plan to equip or provide parents with tools for them to identify vaping devices and the potential use or identify the potential use of vapes by the child? My last question: the campus and the hostels of the institutes of higher learning (IHLs) are really porous and do we have plans to install vapes detection systems in the IHL campus and hostels? I support the Bill.”
“However, I think we can explore much more intensive co-parenting, in situations that are possible, to bring both foster parents and the biological parents together, with the kids as the centre of our attention. The whole idea for us as foster parents, is to stabilise the kid, gain trust, build bonds and then interact or integrate them back with the biological parents. That is our mission and we want to make sure that the bonds continue, rather than disrupted halfway. Protecting Children and Co-parenting”
“Mr Chairman, I would like to state that I am a foster parent registered with MSF. I have three foster kids with me, including one toddler. Sir, there is a real shortage of foster parents. There are about 500 plus children under fostering and the 500 plus under institutions, which is really not a good place to be. But there are about 600 plus foster parents. So, I think we should put more effort into generating awareness among the communities, working with the fostering agency, such as Boys' Towns, Gracehaven, Muhammadiyah Association and PPIS Home for Good. 6.45 pm The other thing is the foster parents; that they are "on" 24/7. It is not "foster parents". It is really the "foster families". So, they really have to look after the kids, stabilise them and nurture them. But there are really issues on the information access for the foster kids. They cannot access the school portal and they cannot book online medical. Those are the issues that the Ministry might want to consider doing a design-thinking project. Go through the full journey for the foster parents and the foster kids, and see where are the pain points. Give them the full access since the kids are the primary persons whom we are looking after. The other thing is a much more holistic way of looking at fostering. I think currently is the trial systems, where you have the biological parents, the foster parents. They do not really talk to each other and then you have the case workers serving as "in-betweens". It has its positive and there is the reason for it being so – so they do not sort of interact too much or have conflicts with each other.”
“I would like to propose that we close this gap. That for technology ventures that are globally oriented and leadership driven, g-o-l-d, I will call it these gold nuggets that we have. And I believe we have a lot of gold nuggets. My doctorate is in innovation. I have trained a lot of innovative teams in the universities. So, how to bring these gold nuggets to become actually a big gold bar? I believe that our exchange can be structured for special listing rules for the technology ventures in the size of about $50 to $100 to 150 million, giving them the special access so that the —”
“Mr Chairman, I would like to declare that I have innovation studios which create and invest in technology and innovation ventures for the global market. We are actually living in a very exciting time, with lots of disruptive innovations and technology. The question is how we in Singapore explore and exploit such opportunities. If we look at the, let us say, air taxi market that I am involved in, you can see that there are, on NASDAC or NYSE, companies that are worth between about $8 billion and $16 billion in valuations, but they have not sold a single craft. They have pre-orders, but they have not actually sold a single craft. So, they are pre-commercialisation, but the market recognise the opportunities and fund them. Do we have such an exchange in Singapore? I think that is the big question. For technology companies and especially new ventures, really, we need to find a different formula. If you look up north, a little bit further, in Hong Kong, they have the pre-commercialisation listing rules for biomedical under the listing 18A rules or the 18C rules, which is specialist technology companies. We can learn a little bit from that, but they cater for a bigger market. In Singapore, we have lots of startups, technology ventures resulting from the universities' research, and also from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), from our research institutes. There are also a lot of AI innovation opportunities from the private sector. The question is always a gap, the gap between the people that are looking for money and the people looking for exit from the investment. So, they are all staring at each other. Who is going to move first? That is where the pre-commercialisation stage funding is required for all these technology ventures.”
“I personally do not believe in all this stuff, so I view the video and find it to be actually quite neutral and factual. Mr Chairman, the world is really facing a lot of geopolitical tension and contestations amongst major powers and of course, malicious actors will continue their attempts to coerce Singapore and also try to influence Singaporean to adopt policies that are advantageous to their foreign states' interest. Specifically, social media come in all formats, podcasts – and we are talking about real time podcasts, short videos, TikTok or whatsoever. All are attempts to influence Singaporeans, which will impact the fabric of our society. We have the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, but the Government will not be able to identify all these online allegations and fake news. The question is, how do we educate, inoculate, vaccinate, whatever terms that we want to use, to really equip our population, the various segments of our population – students, the community, the businesses – to really discern such activities. I think critical thinking is very important, not just reading about it, but able to think for themselves, whether such news, such videos are attempts to influence us, and how can we have a series of awareness campaigns and events? Really, I think it is a lot of education for our population to really have critical thinking about all these videos and decide for themselves whether these sources are trying to influence us.”
“Chairman, I would like to state that I am a founder of a company that deals with a low altitude economy business, which is basically large drones, or otherwise known as a flying car and, on the way, I am building firefighting drones, and also drones for oil spills. On 26 November 2025, a large fire broke out at the Wang Fuk Court apartment, Hong Kong, and burned for 43 hours and 27 minutes. Seven out of the eight blocks of the complex were consumed by fire, and 168 people died, including one firefighter. In Singapore, I think just on 19 February, a fire occurred at condominium in Kovan on the 14th floor. So, high rise fires are really a big concern in urban cities and that is where we need to pay attention. I understand SCDF has aerial appliances that can catch reach up to 90 metres. My question is, what lessons has MHA drawn from this tragic fire in Hong Kong? How can we apply and adapt these learning points to the Singapore context? What are the new ways or new technologies for addressing high rise fire safety, especially for buildings that are 100 metres and above, or 20 storeys and higher. External Threats and Influences On 25 February, CNA reported that hundreds of AI-generated online videos have been targeting Singapore and especially Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. It is obviously a disinformation campaign. The wordings are all in complex Chinese or 繁体字. These are lots of fabrications about our leadership being under threat and spreading conspiracies. Personally, I have also encountered many friends, business associates, voicing to me concerns on the impact on the business due to Prime Minister Wong's comments during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, 19 November, last year.”
“Chairman, the Enlistment Act requires males of over 18 years old to have compulsory NS – SAF, SPF or the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF). NS as an institution has already evolved beyond protection and the defence of Singapore, but also as a social fabric for us to bond together, to understand each other, whether it is race or culture. So, it is a very valuable institution. Beyond the compulsory services, we also have the SAF Volunteer Corps (SAFVC), SPF's Volunteer Special Constabulary and Citizens on Patrol. At SCDF, we have the Company Emergency Response Team. Is it possible for us to not look at this type of services as just purely voluntary services but as an extension of our National Service? If we can do that, then I think we will be able to build a much more cohesive society that people who are not male citizens serving in the compulsory service, females or new citizens can then claim they are serving their NS. I would like to propose a redefining of NS to include the voluntary services of this nature, especially the uniformed groups. I myself serve on Citizens on Patrol. Tonight, I am going to walk up and down the Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats, the HDB car parks. I think that is also contribution to the protection and defence of the community. I would like to encourage, especially in view of total fertility rate issues and protection of the neighbourhood, that we encourage the Permanent Residents (PRs) to join in such services and also make it compulsory for new citizens to at least do some of these services when they become a new citizen. Strengthening National Resilience”
“Mr Chairman, technology has become a geopolitical tool to impact the geopolitical economy that we have. Right now, you can see the "IC war". Not literally a war, but the barriers are being set up for technology transfer and also technology utilisation, trying to impede countries from moving from a higher level of technology capabilities. I think Prof Joseph Nair famously mentioned two things: power and soft power. Technology then, can be a soft power. But the question is how we utilise it for the benefits of Singapore and also countries surrounding us or even for the world. My observation is that technology, as we are practising right now, is on a lower level for foreign affairs. We set up technical assistance centres, we help our neighbouring countries and we offer scholarships. At a higher level, where we are in pioneering technologies such as quantum, such as AI. We typically leave it to either the industry or the research centres or the universities to implement, according to their relationships, maybe their complementary strengths. Would MFA consider technology as a strategic tool in our foreign policy that we upgrade and push as a soft power? My proposal is whether we will upgrade our current technology directorate into an ambassador level or have a coherent way of putting all our technologies in Singapore, from the pioneering and not just on the pioneering capabilities, but also the absorptive capacity of certain countries, because different countries have different level of technology absorption capacity. So, the training centres, will they be upgraded on a national scale rather than ad hoc basis? So, I am looking forward to a small strategic direction for our technology policy. Sovereignty and Economic Security”
“Thank you, Speaker. The Prime Minister mentioned in his Budget speech that 1% of the GDP is dedicated to R&D expenses, commonly known as the gross expenditure on R&D (GERD). Israel, an innovation nation, has 6%. I think Sweden has 4%. For most of the European countries, it is about 3%. What is our target and how can we actually use part of the $15 billion surplus to give it a boost?”
“It means that our population will halve in 30 years' time, that is what it means. And therefore, it is an existential issue. We know all the problems – we basically do not have enough space, marry late, have a career and all the kinds of issues. I want to give a proposal: it is that for existing families who do not have kids, should we nudge them a little bit more? How to nudge them? Maybe we should consider for the first-born, we have free childcare and infant care. Because for the rest, we already have existing systems of subsidies and also the Baby Bonus. But to nudge them on to having the first kid, when you have the first kid, then the joy of parenting and the confidence of bringing them up all comes into picture. And when you have your first kid, then when you see them grow up, you will look at them and then say, "Oh, maybe we should have another one to keep him or her company." So, let us try out something that shifts the point of TFR a little bit – not to two, not to 1.5, but maybe bring it above one. Mr Speaker, that is what I would like to comment on today and I support the Motion.”
“We walked into our neighbour's house and slept on the floor – there is no couch – anytime we want. That is the kampong spirit of understanding and looking after each other. We have talked so much about kampong spirit. We have block parties. Did we really actually achieved the type of kampong spirit? So, block parties – you live on the 14th floor, I live on the third floor. Are we that close? The closest people are the persons living here and there – your neighbours, your immediate neighbours, who can look after you if they really understand you. I do not really have a solution for this because times are different. Maybe we should have, instead of block parties, potluck among the three neighbours together to understand each other, to know each other and to take care of each other and to actively look out for each other. Not just care for each other but actively caring for each other. How to do it? I do not have a solution, but maybe a CDC voucher can help to let them have some potluck together among the three families, next to each other. One topic that I am personally involved in is fostering. And we are very sad, very concerned in our fostering community over the Megan Khung case. My colleague here was the chair of the investigation committee. In late 2024, we have 600 foster families and currently, in my house I have three foster kids. These 600 foster families support more than 500 children. It is actually not sufficient. But we think that there should be more plans, more awareness activities, more incentives to encourage more people to become foster parents. How are we going to do it? I think I will explain later in the COS. One of my colleagues mentioned that the Singapore TFR has dropped to 0.97. What does it mean?”
“MetaOptics skipped Series A funding and goes directly to an initial public offering (IPO) on Catalist. And the Minister of State Dinesh was there to witness, with the gong. So, we use this as a reference or the pilot point for us to say, "Hey, why not we create a special path for technology ventures?" Special listing rules for technology ventures that allow them, with criteria listed by the exchange, the sponsors and maybe a group of wise old men, meaning people who have done technology ventures before, to determine whether they are suitable for such acceleration programme, fast track, or we can call it, in Singapore style, through-train. On Catalist, this is something that it is possible for us to explore and make these companies anchor in Singapore. Because if they grow to a point that they are ready for IPO, what would they choose? Catalist? No, likely overseas, where the market capitalisations or the valuation is much higher. So, this is something that we really have to grapple with and anchor them early in Singapore. If you look at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the HKEX already has a special pathway for specialist technology companies, but this is of a bigger scale. I am proposing that we have an innovation within our Catalist for smaller market valuation companies. Let me move on to a caring society. I am very saddened whenever I read in The Straits Times that seniors die in their homes and nobody knows about it. It was reported in The Straits Times that 33 seniors died alone in 2025, undetected. I am a kampong boy. I grew up not in a zinc roof house. I lived and grew up in an attap roof house. I think in our so-called categorisation of HDB, it would probably be a three-room for attap roof, and then zinc roof is a five-room. We knew all our neighbours.”
“So, maybe we could consider that if, given a number of "X" years, if the patent is not filed or commercialised by our research institutes or universities, we might want to consider treating it as a public good and licence to any Singaporean companies or Singaporean individuals who want to use the patent for any other innovation purposes, free. Let me move on to another topic – which is how to grow and anchor technology ventures in Singapore. The National University of Singapore started technology commercialisation in the year 2000, when I was an adjunct faculty. And in 2019, we started the Graduate Research Innovation Programme (GRIP). I designed the programme for the teaching part and I was a chief instructor. I am glad that it has progressed to become the National GRIP. I am no more the teacher. During the first phase, we had churned out a lot of companies, about 250 of them. I can observe that they are good firms, they have lots of support through the Singapore tech ecosystems. So, the seeding and angel funding are not an issue. The issue then is how we bring them to commercialisation or early commercialisation, because there is a mismatch of expectations. Why? When you move on from the seeding stage to pre-commercialisation or the pilot stage, you need more funding and the funding has to come from the venture capital market. And the venture capitalists are looking at returns at maybe three years down the road and if there is no liquidity event, then they will just hold on. And now, you have a mismatch: one is moving and needs money; one is waiting to see. So, it is a chicken and egg issue. So, how do we resolve this issue? I think that the recent example might point us a way.”
“We are ranked number five and that sounds very good, right? Well, the ranking has two parts. Innovation input and innovation output. So, innovation input is on infrastructure, the Government actions, especially the R&D dollars. We are number one. Okay, we pat ourselves on that. We really invest in R&D. But innovation output – which is the licensings, the trademarks and all the other IPs that we file for commercialisation, we are number nine. Innovation input number one; innovation output number nine. Is it really equitable? Are we, after 15 years or 20 years of R&D, still ranked number nine, which is not comparable with the amount of innovation input, or R&D dollars, we put into it. So, how do we measure the commercialisations of IPs? Firstly, what is the research and R&D intensity? How many IPs have we generated based on the R&D dollars? Secondly, how many such patents or trademarks or copyrights are commercialised within the last five years? That could be a factor for us to judge. Remember, patents are perishable goods. A patent only has a 20-year lifetime and from the date of filing. So, if we file today, it does not mean we have the rights of it until that is awarded which is two years down the road, but the clock starts counting. So, we should quickly get it into the market or commercialise it. If after five years, that piece of patent is not commercialised, it is probably going to be obsolete very soon. And if it is obsoleted, then what is the point of filing the patent in the first place because patent is really, really expensive.”
“So, if we pursued these areas, how much land reclamation can we do, how many foreign labours can we import into this country – so there is always a limit, so that is matters. Now things – matters and things are the same – but ideas are very different. Ideas are ingenuity created by human beings. So, ideas generally can be classified as intellectual properties (IPs). So, patents, you came out with ideas, you filed a patent, what happens? You can reuse, reuse and reuse it again. There is abundance against scarcity. The more you use the patents, the more you generate production, the higher the productivity and therefore, it is not the law of diminishing returns. It is actually the law of increasing returns. If we go along this formula, or this road, then, possibly, the GDP growth will be limitless or unlimited. Of course, subject to Utopia constraints. So, where are we now? Singapore rolled out its five-yearly science and technology plans from 1991 to 2010, spending about $25 billion over the years to build up our R&D capabilities, infrastructure and manpower. This year, 2026 to 2030, or what we call the RIE 2030, is allocated $37 billion. This is actually a very far-sighted move, because we have to move ourselves from research to innovation and enterprise. With this amount of money that spans over the last 15 years, what have we achieved? Well, it is not easy to measure because R&D is uncertain and of course, if you are doing biomedical applications, it could be 20 years or 30 years before you see any results. However, a simpler way to analyse this situation is to use the Global Innovation Index conducted by the World Intellectual Property Office. We use it as a reference – Global Innovation Index ranking. For Singapore, what is our ranking in 2025?”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to declare that I am a technology entrepreneur and I have a studio that creates and invest in technology-based venture, such as engineering, aerospace and medical devices. My speech today is going to focus on three main areas. The first area is a vibrant economy; followed by an active caring society; followed by the last topic, which is a resilient nation. On to vibrant economy. Singapore transformed itself from the third world to the first world over the last 60 years, from a labour-intensive industry to a very much technology-intensive economy. How did we do it? What is the secret recipe? What are the systems of governance that enabled us to do so? Those are questions eagerly sought by participants of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy class, while I was associate faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School. Those answers probably will not be able or to solve our current economic situation going forward as we have entered into more advanced technology, more pioneering efforts and therefore, we probably have to switch our strategy, change our secret sauces or what is the new formula? I was in conversation with Dr Paul Romer, who is the former World Bank chief economist and also the Nobel Laureate for Economics 2018. Romer is well known for his endogenous growth theory, otherwise known as the new growth theory. That probably points a good direction for us. The endogenous growth theory, conceptually, is very simple – matters over things. What are matters? Simply, they can be just factors of production – land, labour and capital. Land, labour and capital have their limits. The more you use the land, it suffers from the loss of diminishing returns. It has scarcity.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk on this Motion. I am new here. I am an engineer, so, I will be very short and sharp. I am also a fellow and a former vice president of the Institution of Engineers. We are trained to analyse systematically and logically. Interestingly, I am also a layperson of the investigation and disciplinary panel of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants. We take our roles very seriously as they have impact on a person's reputation and also his livelihood. We rely on objective evidence and less on emotions or personal opinions. I am going to ask three questions to myself in order to resolve or understand how I react to this Motion: principle, facts and action. So, what are the principles? This Motion is all about honesty and integrity so that we have built trust in this august Chamber. What are the facts? We have to rely on evidence of factual things that are indisputable. In my work, whether it is professional opinion or judgement, we rely more on the Court's findings. So, these are factual stuff and not disputable. What is the action then? We address Members in this Chamber as hon Members. The public does expect us and, in particular, office holders, to have the highest integrity and honesty. It is, thus, not really tenable for the Leader of the Opposition to carry on in this role as it is. Mr Speaker, Sir, I regret that we have to face this issue, but I believe Singaporeans hold us and Members in this Chamber to the highest standards of honesty and integrity. I rise to support this Motion.”