Mdm Rahayu Mahzam, Minister of State at the Ministry of Digital Development and Information;

Ms Catherine Lau, Deputy Chief Executive, National Library Board;

Professor Alan Chan, Provost of the Singapore Management University;

Distinguished Guests;

Colleagues and Friends.

The partnership between SUTD and NLB is an unusual one because we succeeded together even before we formally began.

In mid-May, NLB’s Oral History Centre decided to adopt and adapt an SUTD Design AI Interview Companion to help train oral history interviewers. Three things stood out:

1. The five graduate students designed it without coding – they vibecoded it.
2. They only started in early Feb – it took just under four months.
3. Most had never designed with AI.

They pulled it off because SUTD has uncovered how to nurture innovators who design human-centred AI that elevates trust, safety, and human possibility. We call this Design AI for short. Our students knew what many have yet to realise: using AI as a tool is “old school” (pun intended). Instead, they partnered AI as a teammate to amplify human capabilities – theirs, NLB’s, and those of the oral history interviewers. And building on SUTD’s work, I have also heard that the Oral History Centre hopes to enhance the Interview Companion further to deliver even more precise and in-depth insight to users.

Our conviction to raise human potential is why SUTD made the pivot earlier this year to be the world’s first Design AI university. This is more than a label, and also more than whether AI is under- or over-hyped. Design AI is how SUTD slices through the hype because as our students show, we know how to make trusted and safe AI concrete, creative, and empowering.

This small success seeds a fantastic start to our partnership. NLB’s mission is to “make knowledge come alive, spark imagination and create possibilities”. SUTD can amplify that. Together – and with AI as our mutual teammate – we can make designing with AI come alive, ignite imaginations, and co-create possibilities.

Let me be ambitious.

I hope we can work together to democratise AI access and creation for all Singaporeans. We can empower every citizen to build their own Design AI assistants like the Interview Companion. We can build on existing efforts like the tuition-free 42 Singapore, partner new ones such as this MOU between our Humanities and Social Sciences faculty and NLB’s collections and explore future initiatives such as our Festival of Funny Machines to build machines that inspire joy and humour.

Together, we can keep our citizenry informed, ensure AI is inclusive, and design a future that is innovative for all. Thank you!