20 November 2021

A new malware analysis centre at Temasek Polytechnic was recently launched by Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary.

The centre is staffed entirely by students who take turns tackling roles such as security managers and analysts and solve real malware problems. Their customers for now comprise students of Temasek Polytechnic who can walk in with their infected personal devices for free servicing.

Dr Janil said that nurturing cyber security talent is a strategic priority for Singapore. He said that while Singapore has made significant progress in expanding the size of its cyber security workforce, the supply has still not caught up with the great demand for these workers.

The malware analysis centre at TP will serve as a training ground for students from the polytechnic’s Diploma in Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics course, as well as part-time students and adult learners in various courses.

20 November 2021

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has stated that around 13,000 at-risk students will benefit from the expansion of the Uplift Enhanced School Resourcing programme, a programme designed by the Ministry of Education to help them stay in school through after-school support and holiday activities.

Disparities between families has been an ongoing problem in Singapore’s educational landscape. Long-term absenteeism, for instance, is a key barrier, impeding children’s progress in their learning. There also have to be sufficient touch points with these students, even during the school holidays. This is where adults, like a teacher or mentor, play a key role in ensuring such students do not fall behind their peers.

Singapore has made great strides in uplifting its people in the past few decades, but going forward, it has to make sure no one is left behind.

13 November 2021

Noodle Factory is a firm that aims to help teachers perform teaching duties such as marking and setting assessments by using artificial intelligence. The AI system the firm has invented purports to help teachers create notes, and set and mark simple assessments.

Set up in 2018, Noodle Factory now has about 5,200 students and teachers from secondary schools and institutes of higher learning using its program.

To use the program, teachers drag and drop text into its artificial intelligence engine, and the text is then converted into easily digestible chunks. Users can also feed the engine with information that gets turned into short questions.

The engine uses natural language processing to identify when a student’s answers to open-ended questions are correct or partially acceptable, even if the wording is different. It also offers analytics to teachers, such as the most-asked questions by students.