Beyond selfies and viral trends, social media has undeniably had an impact on society and human communication. One of the areas where platforms like Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter), among others, have shaped conversations is in the field of activism. From the Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter to MeToo — which in 2019 found a local equivalent in Monica Baey’s voyeurism case going viral — it is hard to think of a major movement over the past decade or more where social media has not played […]
Read More >TECHNOLOGY
WOMEN IN SCIENCE: My Wish List as an Early-Career Researcher and Mother
There are many areas of science, and for each area, the demands would differ. One simple example would be the stark difference between a bioinformatician and a microbiologist. Aside from the difference in core knowledge needed to perform the job, it could be argued that the former would allow greater flexibility in terms of place of work, as well as time of work. This is because a bioinformatician’s experiments would mainly be computational and this could potentially be done from anywhere with Internet access and a computer, as compared to […]
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Folk Tradecrafts, Black Boxes and Caches: A Request for Algorithmic Legibility in Gig Work
I a bit IT-oriented ah …When you go the [online] forum, people complain in the forum, I cannot get this, cannot get that. Full of comments on bad apps. Then I write in, try to clear your cache, that is the secret.[1] Neil, a private hire platform driver, shared the above ‘secret’ to getting more jobs during an interview with me. Another ‘secret’ shared by another driver was having multiple phones, each with a particular gig work app on, instead of having all the apps switched on the same smartphone. […]
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Landing a Job in Tech
ARE MALAYS NOT INTERESTED IN TECH CAREERS?
Today, more and more people are looking to get into the tech industry. It seems like every day there is a new startup, artificial intelligence (AI) project, or robotics development that makes the tech world seem like an exciting place to be in. The industry is growing, which means there is an increasing need for tech pros in almost every role. This does not just apply to software developers and engineers; there are plenty of opportunities for people who want to work in IT, data analytics, or even user experience design.
Digitalisation and Its Impact on Family Values and Parent-Child Relationship
“Technique has penetrated the deepest recesses of the human being. The machine tends not only to create a new human environment, but also to modify man’s very essence. The milieu in which he lives is no longer his. He must adapt himself, as though the world were new, to a universe for which he was not created.
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The Kids Are (Going to Be) Alright: The Internet as a Force for Good
In a survey by McCann World Group involving 32,000 people identified as Generation Z, 66% of respondents globally say they feel lonely, even when surrounded by friends and family[1]. In Singapore, one in three youth reported mental health symptoms such as sadness, anxiety, and loneliness, in a national study of 3,336 young people aged 11 to 18[2]. As ‘digital natives’, the catch-all term for under-35s who first embraced smartphones and have higher usage of such technology compared to other age groups, it is easy to associate our declining mental health state with our use of technology[3].
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From Kampung to Crypto: Empowering our Malays in Tech
In the past decade, we have seen the world grow exponentially with technology. Our larger community has become increasingly dependent on smartphones and computers to power our fast-paced lives. Within Singapore, this has sparked a slew of government-supported tech skills training initiatives – from SkillsFuture-claimable tech bootcamps like those by Generation Singapore to government partnerships with tech employers like the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA).
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The Realities of Starting A Tech Company
Startups employ more than 300,000 people in Singapore across 42,000 companies in 2013, up from 24,000 companies in 2005[1]. These numbers have probably increased substantially since. As a nation, we have produced 15 of the 35 unicorns[2] in the region, including Razer and Sea[3]. Additionally, around 80 of the world’s top 100 tech companies have a significant presence in Singapore[4]. But what does it take to actually start one of these?
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Digital Currencies and Their Adoption in Singapore
MONEY, FIAT CURRENCY AND CRYPTOCURRENCIES
The three main functions of money are as a unit of account, medium of exchange and store of value. Cash is a financial instrument and physical asset that combines four features: (i) it is anonymous; (ii) it is universal (anyone can take possession); (iii) it is exchanged peer to peer (without knowledge of the issuer); and (iv) it does not yield any interest by itself[1]. Banks are the traditional money creators and maintain their inimitability at keeping reserves at the central banks (CBs).
The Search for the Best User Experience with Anwar Abdulhaqq
When we think about user experience or UX, we instantly associate the term with apps and websites. UX was first coined in 1993 by cognitive scientist, Donald Norman, who needed a term that would encompass all aspects of a person’s experience with a system, including industrial design, graphics, interface and physical interaction. Today, UX has become a rapidly growing industry with jobs on the rise. A career in the industry encompasses many different roles from product manager, UX designer, UI designer, content designer to UX researcher.
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