InspireCon 2026 – Welcome address by SUTD President Professor Phoon Kok Kwang

Mr David Neo, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and Senior Minister of State for Education,

Students, Parents, Partners, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very warm welcome to InspireCon 2026.

Today is a special moment for SUTD — not just because we are gathered to celebrate the amazing work of our very talented students, but because we are taking an important step in shaping how innovation will be nurtured going forward.

In the last three years, artificial intelligence has really exploded, transforming the way we think and do things and becoming very much a part of everyday life.

The real question is no longer how we use AI. The real question is: can we create new value with it? The future will not be defined by those who simply adopt AI but by those who can design with AI to solve complex real problems and achieve greater human potential through building solutions and creating new value. How AI enhances the innovator and the innovation are two separate dimensions that SUTD Design·AI narrative pays attention to.

What this means is that we are at an inflection point in how we think about learning and innovation. For a long time, education has been centred on knowledge. But in a world where AI can generate, retrieve, process, and now “reason” with information instantly, knowledge alone is no longer enough. The real shift is towards skills and creation — how we use knowledge to solve real problems, how we work with AI to prototype, test, and refine ideas quickly, and how we create novel value in the real world. Put simply, how we become better human beings through this process of learning, creating and building prototypes deployable in enterprises.

Increasingly, we are seeing that students can take on real-world challenges and deliver outcomes at a speed and level that was previously unimaginable. This is not because they know more, but because they are learning how to work differently: leveraging AI, thinking through design, and focusing on building real-world application from the start. You notice that I have repeated “building” several times – this is key to unlocking human and economic potential in the age of AI.

This is where DIVE comes in. Part of our learning must come from building.

DIVE, or Design·AI Innovation and Venture Exploration, is more than just an entrepreneurship programme. It represents how we bring our Design·AI vision to life by putting knowledge into motion and providing a structured scaffolding for students to grow beyond the classroom from Term 1 to graduation and beyond. The spirit of building has already been an integral part of SUTD since its inception, but the structured scaffolding that can amplify the impact of our student projects beyond SUTD was missing.

Design·AI is about nurturing this new generation of innovators called “trilinguals” who can work at the intersection of design, AI, and one or more domains. These are individuals who can collaborate effectively with AI, collaborate with each other, and design solutions grounded in real-world contexts, guided by empathy, values, and a sense of purpose.

DIVE is the pathway that connects our Design·AI innovators to the real world. It runs alongside academic life, giving students the space to explore, experiment, and develop an entrepreneurial mindset, while working closely with industry partners on real-world challenges.

At the heart of this journey is the DIVE Residential College: Singapore’s first innovation-themed residential college. The DIVE Residential College is a living-learning environment where mindsets are shaped, values are formed, and character is built through everyday life.

Through DIVE, our students will explore problems that matter and take ideas beyond the classroom. Because innovation is not something you can fully teach. It is something you must experience.

We expect our students to take ownership of DIVE, because they are convinced that strengthening their skillsets as design innovators will matter more than before in the future of work. Hence, unlike the academic curriculum, DIVE will be optional.

Our students would not take much convincing as all of them are already applying these ideas in practice. Today, we have over 90 project teams showcasing their work, tackling real-world challenges and translating ideas into tangible solutions. Capstone and other projects are parts of DIVE that will be curated into a powerful journey, and they are already in action.

As we are talking about real-world solutioning, let me also take this opportunity to say a few words about a newly published SUTD report, “Designing a Human AI Innovation Edge for Enterprises”¹ commissioned by SSG and SGTech.

This report sets out how Singapore can build a Human–AI innovation edge. It brings together evidence from across industry, government, and SUTD’s own Design·AI work, and shows how innovation is shifting from something done by a few, to something that can be done by many.

What it shows is powerful: innovation is no longer confined to R&D labs by a highly specialised group of researchers. It can happen across everyday work. It can be done by everyone.

Singapore is in a unique position. Over the past decade, we have built strong foundations through SkillsFuture, enterprise adoption, and new approaches to education and research. These efforts now converge to form a national ecosystem for human–AI innovation, one that is already ahead of global practice.

If Singapore were to lead in this space, then Design·AI must become widely known not just within academia, but across industry, government, and society. This is how we take the Design·AI narrative to the next level by making it real, visible, impactful, and most importantly show how it benefits everyone and how everyone can participate. From the report, it is evident that SUTD’s partnership with enterprises and government is gathering strong momentum.

The future of work and innovation is being rewritten. Singapore has the opportunity to lead not just in adopting AI, but in shaping how the world innovates with it. SUTD is proud to play a role in this sea change.

I look forward to the ideas and collaborations that will come out of today. I also hope you enjoy walking through InspireCon which showcases the amazing work of our students.

Thank you.

1  https://www.sutd.edu.sg/foi-report/designing-a-human-ai-innovation-edge-for-enterprises