A very good afternoon to all of you.
Introduction
1. I have three wishes for SIT on this momentous occasion.
2. But before that, I should put on record our appreciation to the campus' development team. The many partners, architects, the workers behind the scenes who made this possible. Notwithstanding the delay, we are still making good progress and without their support, we wouldn't even be here today. I am sure that the team will continue to work hard to make sure that they can deliver on time for next year's opening.
3. Now, 3 points which I hope SIT will remember:
4. First, I always spend a lot of time paying attention to how buildings are constructed. As said by Winston Churchhill, "We spend a few years designing and shaping a building. Then the building will spend the next few decades shaping us."
5. In designing this SIT building, I'm very happy to see that it has adhered to the basic philosophy of how we want this building to be integrated with the rest of the community, with the industry, and also to allow the cross-pollination of ideas across different disciplines and different sectors.
6. Why is that so? The building is situated in the heart of Punggol. It will become a central part of the Punggol Digital District. Right from the get-go, we wanted to design a campus that is integrated with industry and the community. This is a philosophy that I hope SIT will continue developing.
7. I'm also very happy to see that in the design of the building, SIT has designed it in such a way that the spaces are configurable and agile, because we cannot anticipate today what will be the needs in the next decade, or even in the next few decades. What is required is an agile mindset and a configuration that allows us to keep pace with our future needs.
8. So, my first wish is that SIT continues to use this agile and integrated approach in all things that you do, like how it has been manifested and reflected in your new design.
9. SIT did not start off with a campus. SIT has been a virtue out of necessity, by building on the connections with all the polytechnics. Thus, my second wish is that even as SIT has its own campus in time to come, I hope that SIT will never forgo the linkages that you have so painstakingly built up in the past, with the polytechnics and the many other institutions.
10. This is what makes SIT stands out as a university that is fully connected to all polytechnics and other institutions beyond SIT. I am confident that the current and future generations of leaders in SIT will treasure these links.
11. Now to my third and final point, which I hope that SIT will achieve in due course. Today, SIT has grown from taking in a few hundred students in its initial batch to a few thousand students now. I have this dream that one day, SIT will bring in more post-graduate students than undergraduate students every year.
12. SIT was set up to become a catalyst for adult learning. May SIT strive towards that goal and reach it in good time.
13. While we can prepare a cohort of 40,000 students to graduate from university every year, we need to retrain 400,000 to 500,000 adult learners to be current and relevant to market needs. Out of these 400,000 to 500,000 that we need to upskill every year, I hope that SIT can take in a good proportion of these adult learners.
14. If we can do that, SIT will not just be an Institute of Higher Learning, but it'll be an Institute of Continuous Learning, reaching out to the people in the community, to the industry, to the polytechnics and ITEs. This will become the focal point for our adult learning.
Conclusion
15. On that note, let me once again congratulate SIT for reaching this milestone. Remember – you are built with integration in mind with the community, the industry, and you are built to be agile in your configuration.
16. Never lose your links that you've so painstakingly built up with the Institutions of Higher Learning.
17. Finally, may you one day, be the first, if not one of the first, to be truly an Institute of Continuous Learning, rather than just an Institute of Higher Learning.
18. Congratulations, and well done to the team!