SUTD Breaks With Tradition; Holds Singapore’s First Off-Campus Open House

An Open House that’s held off campus? That’s exactly what the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is doing in a dramatic move that takes this huge annual exercise to the community instead of inviting would-be undergraduates to the university grounds.

From 27 February to 1 March, SUTD is reimagining the Open House experience by bringing it to VivoCity, one of Singapore’s largest shopping malls. Here, parents and students can experience seven specially curated Design Artificial Intelligence (Design AI) innovations through interactive, game-based demonstrations. One of the highlights is Stick ’Em, a Singapore-based startup co-founded by an SUTD student that won the US$1 million Hult Prize last year. Visitors will be able to use chopsticks to build Stick ’Em robots and navigate them through a race course. Stick ’Em is also collaborating with Neural Drive, another SUTD startup, enabling visitors to navigate the robots using brain-computer interface technology.

“It’s exciting to see Stick ’Em move into a public space where anyone can engage with what we’ve built,” said Mr Adam Huh Dam, co-founder of Stick ’Em and Class of 2025 alumnus. “Being part of SUTD’s Open House reflects how the University has always encouraged us when we were students to test ideas in the real world, learn fast, and build solutions that people can actually experience.”

The SUTD Open House at VivoCity also showcases other student- and researcher-led projects from 27 February to 1 March, between 10.30am and 10pm. This follows an earlier, smaller-scale showcase at Century Square in Tampines. Visitors learned more about SUTD’s offerings — including its “supercharged” Design and Artificial Intelligence (DAI) degree programme.

Projects featured at the SUTD Open House at VivoCity:

• ApexCARES: a comprehensive service application providing caregivers with AI-powered insights into dementia patients;
• ApronFlow.Opt: demonstrates how visual analytics and operational data can optimise workflows for faster aircraft turnaround;
• FORMAS.AI: an AI design studio enabling instant creation of photorealistic images from simple doodles;
• ObstaX Mini: a lightweight wearable that delivers instant, AI-powered descriptions to help visually impaired users navigate with confidence; and
• VisionFit: combines gamification with Google’s ML Kit Pose Detection to track form and technique during workouts.

Together, these innovations demonstrate how human creativity can be amplified when paired with AI. Visitors can also take part in an AI-powered career assessment and photo booth experience to discover which SUTD major suits them best and receive a personalised AI-generated avatar.

As with all Open Houses, the Admissions team, together with faculty and student representatives, will be on hand to answer any queries from visitors – including introducing the newly-launched Supercharged DAI undergraduate degree, which effectively integrates technology and innovation with the humanities and social sciences. This hybrid degree is the first of its kind in Singapore and is aimed at attracting high-calibre students with strong interests in social science domains such as economics, business, finance, psychology, philosophy, and human-AI interaction, alongside proficiency in Mathematics and the Sciences.

Describing the decision to bring Open House to the masses as a “bold move”, SUTD Chief Communications Officer Ms Tammy Tan said: “SUTD has always been a trailblazer. We were the first university in the world to introduce a DAI degree back in 2020 – well before AI was a buzzword. Last year, we were the first university in the world to pivot to AI, becoming the world’s first Design AI university. It is therefore no surprise that we would even consider bringing Open House out of campus. We believe that by doing this, more people will be able to see first-hand, the unique SUTD experience.”

Seventeen-year-old Jason Jomono, a current St Andrew’s Junior College student who visited the SUTD Open House at Century Square, tried the interactive activities FORMAS.AI and VisionFit. “FORMAS.AI really stood out to me as I got to experience a real-world creative application of AI. It was amazing to see AI’s creative side in action,” he said. “Interacting with the camera motion tracking in VisionFit was also a highlight — it was super memorable.”

Adding to the off-campus experience was SUTD’s mascot, Fab.io the Autopus — a part-machine, part-octopus character designed by SUTD students that represents the University’s Design AI ethos of curiosity, inventiveness, and multidisciplinary thinking.

As part of the lead-up to the Open House, SUTD installed a giant inflatable “Chope Buddy” at the hawker centre at Our Tampines Hub on 13 February and at Junction 8 on 24 February. Bearing the message “No tissue pack? No problem,” the installation playfully referenced the familiar Singapore practice of using tissue packets to reserve tables in crowded eating places, offering an oversized stand-in as a tongue-in-cheek solution.

Those unable to attend in person can visit SUTD’s digital Open House, which offers a preview of its programmes, student projects, and campus experience.