Push the Frontiers of Work and Learning

Klaus D. Wittkuhn
Founder and Managing Partner, Performance Design International

Klaus is the founder and managing partner of Performance Design International, a company focused on performance-based training and specialising in the design of performance systems. He has consulted for more than twenty-five years in a variety of industries, in the public sector, and with non-governmental organisations in more than 25 countries.

Klaus majored in Political Economics and Educational Science and has a broad education in systemic consulting and psychology. He is an adjunct faculty member at two Universities in Germany and Switzerland and served as Vice-President on the Board of the Federation for Professional Qualification, Germany, from 2001 to 2015, and as President of the Board of the International Society for Performance Improvement from 2015 to 2017.

Klaus is an Honorary Life Member of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) and was the first one to receive the Society’s Geary Rummler Award for the Advancement of Performance Improvement.

Keynote 5 – Performing in Uncharted Waters – Re-learning with Disruptive Technologies

In our time-starved world with increasingly short business cycles, employee learning and engagement must be more directly interlinked with business results and form the centerpiece of any successful enterprise growth strategy.

Accordingly, classical development and delivery approaches are too slow and expensive, with no elaborated didactics that can adequately re-skill and up-skill our workforce to remain employable. The prevalence of user-generated content, gamification, augmented reality and artificial intelligence, to name a few, are causing disintermediation and prompting new approaches in developing, curating and delivering content. Interaction with different data and collaboration platforms in real time will become the norm and precipitate new forms of learning and skills acquisition. New tracking systems will also enable contributions made by learning to be monitored and iterated quickly to stay relevant and effective.

This presentation will examine key trends outlined above and guiding principles that can support the re-invention of learning design and delivery. Innovative practices of companies, universities, and training providers globally will illuminate ways for practitioners and businesses to exploit emerging opportunities.

Loh Lik Peng
Founder, Unlisted Collection

Dynamic hotelier and restaurateur Loh Lik Peng attended law school in England, University of Sheffield, and postgraduate studies at London School of Economics followed by bar exams in London before returning to Singapore in 1997. Loh became a corporate litigator upon his return before leaving the profession to venture into the hospitality industry. Since then, Loh has started ventures across Singapore, Shanghai, London and Sydney under the Unlisted Collection.

Loh is a member of Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) Tourism Consultative Council. In 2004, STB awarded Loh with the “New Tourism Entrepreneur Award” for his work in transforming a simple shop house into Hotel 1929. He was once again awarded the “Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year” award at the Singapore Experience Awards 2011, the most prestigious awards platform in Singapore’s tourism industry. Recently in 2016, he was awarded World Gourmet Summit’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” which recognises individuals who have made significant contributions in the food and beverage industry.

Loh served as Chairman for Singapore Philatelic Museum from 2012 to 2016 and director of Mercy Relief from 2014 to 2017. Currently, he is the Chairman for Asian Civilisations Museum, The Peranakan Museum, Singapore Cruise Centre Pte Ltd and Singapore Hotel and Tourism Education Centre. He is also serving on the Conservation Advisory Panel convened by Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore. He holds the Directorship for National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre and Singapore Land Authority as well.

Keynote 1 – Work and Learning: Conquer New Frontiers

Singapore is facing a demographic time bomb at a time when technological disruption threatens to upend whole industries and change the nature of work and jobs. What is happening with Singapore’s demographics? How does it affect work and jobs? What are some of the technological advances happening today (and tomorrow) that will change the way we work, and the very notion of a job? How we should prepare the workforce to meet these challenges and face the future with confidence is a conundrum with no easy answers, but it will be crucial to our continued success as a nation. As technology evolves and advances more rapidly today than ever before in history, what can we do to remain relevant and productive? What will the future of work be and what are we doing to prepare for this ever more dynamic and protean future? Topics in relation to the hospitality, food and beverage and tourism industry will be explored in relation to these concerns.

Jane Hart
Founder, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies

Jane Hart is the Founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies (C4LPT), one of the world’s most visited learning sites on the Web. Now in its 11th year, the site is where she compiles the popular annual Top 100 Tools for Learning list from the votes of learning and development professionals worldwide. She has been advising businesses for over 30 years, and currently focuses on helping them to modernise their approaches for workplace learning. Jane has written a number of books on modern workplace learning, and has also produced an online resource, How to become a Modern Professional Learner.

Keynote 2 – Modern Workplace Learning: A New Approach for Today’s Workplace and Workforce

Workplaces, work and workers are changing fast. Those of us riding along in the Internet age will realize that our learning habits are evolving; employees are no longer reliant on enterprise training for their learning and performance needs. Modern workplace learning therefore does not just mean providing modern training, but also supporting individuals and managers to learn from their daily work as well as empowering individuals to take more responsibility for their continuous self-improvement and self-development at work. How can we move beyond the confines of the traditional paradigm of ‘training’? What do all these mean for the transformation of learning and performance design and practices?

Mr Chee Hong Tat
Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry & Ministry of Education

Mr Chee Hong Tat was first elected as a Member of Parliament for the Bishan-Toa Payoh Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in the 2015 General Elections, and was appointed Minister of State for Health and Communications & Information on 1 October 2015. He was promoted to Senior Minister of State on 1 May 2017.

Mr Chee graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science (Highest Honours) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a Bachelor of Arts (Highest Honours) in Economics. He obtained his Masters of Business Administration from Adelaide University in 2006.

Mr Chee joined the Civil Service in 1998 and worked at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Education. He was appointed Principal Private Secretary to then Minister Mentor Mr Lee Kuan Yew in 2008. Following that, Mr Chee became Chief Executive of the Energy Market Authority in 2011, and was appointed Second Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 2014.

Mr Chee was born in 1973 and is married with four children.

Dr Eddy Lee
Founder, Coffee Ventures

Eddy Lee, PhD, has invested in and supported more than 50 startups, predominantly in the US, Singapore and Indonesia. His interest areas include technologies in the financial and health sectors, IoT, artificial intelligence, and marketplace technologies. He relocated from the Silicon Valley to Southeast Asia and co-founded Coffee Ventures to tackle unmet needs in emerging markets. The early stage fund focuses on people development, product-market fit, and product distribution in markets such as Indonesia and Myanmar.

At Stanford University, Eddy mentors at the StartX incubator, and was formerly a consulting professor. During his career at Stanford, Singapore and Australia, he devised medical imaging technology for visualizing stem cell migration and therapy. Eddy used to design semiconductor chips at Marvell, a NASDAQ-listed Southeast Asia success story which he hopes his portfolio startups could one day emulate. Eddy completed a fellowship at Stanford University, and holds a Ph.D in Bioengineering and a B.Eng in Electrical Engineering.

Keynote 4 – The Future of Work and Learning Begins Now

According to McKinsey, up to 800 million people, or 30% of the global workforce, may be displaced from their jobs over the next 13 years. Self-driving vehicles, no longer an “if” but “when”, will wipe out thousands of driving jobs. Such replacement of manual jobs is further exacerbated by human-beating A.I. that threatens aspects of accounting, legal, finance and other white-collared jobs. Sounds scary? The good news is that history has always shown that such fears arising from technological innovations are largely unfounded. As with previous technological shifts, machines increase overall efficiency, which means there is an opportunity for workers (and adult educators) to adopt new skills. This new skills space is where forward-thinking learning professionals must explore, as possibilities abound for new business models, products and services.

Dr Diana G. Oblinger
President Emeritus, EDUCAUSE

Dr. Diana G. Oblinger is President Emeritus of EDUCAUSE, a non-profit association of 2,400 colleges, universities, and education organisations whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. She served as President and CEO from 2008 – 2015, and as Vice President from 2004 – 2008. Previously, Oblinger held positions in academia and business: Vice President for Information Resources and the Chief Information Officer for the University of North Carolina system, Executive Director of Higher Education for Microsoft, and IBM Director of the Institute for Academic Technology. She was on the faculty at the University of Missouri-Columbia and at Michigan State University.

Oblinger is known for her leadership in teaching and learning. She founded the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, and in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she led the creation of the Next Generation Learning Challenges, a USD $65 million programme focused on improving college readiness and completion through information technologies.

Oblinger has served on a variety of boards including the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Cyber-infrastructure, the board of directors of ACT, the American Council on Education (ACE) board, and chair of the Washington Higher Education Secretariat. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Ellucian.

Oblinger is a frequent keynote speaker as well as the author or co-author of multiple books. She has received outstanding teaching and research awards, served as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Learning Technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and hold three honorary degrees. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Sigma Xi.

Keynote 3 – From Disruption to Design: Re-conceptualising Lifelong Learning

Today’s upskilling economy and rapid technological change will disrupt the way adult educators, learning and development consultants, education entrepreneurs, and faculty serve lifelong learners. Innovations, such as artificial intelligence, simulations, micro-learning, analytics and massive open online courses (MOOCs) not only transform learning experiences — they can disrupt traditional business models. Pay-for-enrolment may shift to pay-for-results, for example. A focus on workforce outcomes pressures trainers to re-invent themselves and design active educational experiences that create value for students and employers through certifiable competencies, transferrable skills, and greater learning efficiency. New products and new business models designed for talent development and lifelong career success will re-define the value of continuing education and training.