Nanyang Polytechnic students chart digital transformation course for Sim Soon Heng Cooking Ingredients

Source: Nanyang Polytechnic. MD of Sim Soon Heng David Sim (centre in blue) with his mother Mrs Sim (third from left) and his son (second from left) together with the students of Nanyang Polytechnic's School of Business Management and School of Information Technology. The students worked together on digital transformation for Sim Soon Heng.

Traditional sauce manufacturer Sim Soon Heng Cooking Ingredients (SSH) is taking its first steps into the digital world, with the help of eight teenagers from Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) in Singapore. The students, from the School of Business Management and School of Information Technology, came up with a digitisation strategy for the 39-year-old family-run business that covers multiple channels of customer engagement.

To help the company move beyond selling sauces to restaurants and other businesses, NYP students are developing an interactive website for SSH, targeted at consumers. They have also developed a social media engagement strategy and will be conducting data analytics on social media data. For instance, when the online tools go live, the students will monitor market reactions in order to customise content that is more engaging as well as to launch targeted marketing campaigns.

SSH is the first local small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) to undergo a digital transformation at NYP’s new Customer Experience and Analytics Centre (CEAC). The CEAC helps SMEs digitise their businesses through the development and implementation of online strategies. SMEs can also tap on CEAC to enhance the customer’s experience through data analysis and customer experience studies. The centre is currently working with another three clients and more companies are expected to come on board over the next few months.

David Sim, MD, Sim Soon Heng Cooking Ingredients said, “We have run our business in the same way for the last four decades. It is time to update. We believe the best people to help us do this are the youth. So we chose to work with Nanyang Polytechnic’s students. They have been very professional in helping us through this transformation. ”

His father, Sim Liap Siang, founded the business in 1978, beginning with supplying ready-made chilli paste to hawkers. Today, SSH’s customers comprise food establishments, school canteen and hawkers across the island. They get a wide variety of cooking ingredients from the company, from its self-made chilli paste to soya sauces and flour. The ready-made recipe sauces business will be led by a new generation - David Sim’s son.

Loh Chuu Yi, Director, School of Business Management, Nanyang Polytechnic, said, “Digitisation can be a long and formidable journey, especially for SMEs. The CEAC gives these smaller businesses the opportunity to take a less resource-intensive first step. These real-world experiences also give our business students an edge when they join the industry.”

The CEAC will be formally launched on 27 March 2017 by Low Yen Ling, Singapore Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Trade & Industry.

posted from Bloggeroid

Singapore's NUS, NTU make it to QS top 15

The twelfth edition of the QS World University Rankings states that Singapore’s leading universities have made the top 15 for the first time. The National University of Singapore (12th) is the leading Asian institution and Nanyang Technological University (13th) is right behind. Australian National University (19th) also returns to the top 20 while China’s Tsinghua University (25th) is Asia’s third-best university.

Ben Sowter, QS Head of research says: “These latest results reveal more diversity than ever in the distribution of world-class universities at the highest levels. We’re providing prospective students with the richest picture yet.”

A new approach to “citations per faculty”, a measure of research impact, has delivered fairer evaluations for universities with a strong profile in areas with lower research activity, such as arts, humanities and social sciences. Over 70 thousand (76,798) academics and 44,226 employers contributed to the rankings through the QS global surveys. QS also analysed 11.1 million research papers indexed by Elsevier’s Scopus database. Three thousand, five hundred and thirty-nine institutions were considered for inclusion, and 891 ranked.

2015	2014	Top 20	Country
1	1	MIT	US
2	4	HARVARD	US
3=	2=	CAMBRIDGE	UK
3=	7	STANFORD	US
5	8	CALTECH	US
6	5=	OXFORD	UK
7	5=	UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON	UK
8	2=	IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON	UK
9	12	ETH ZURICH	CH
10	11	CHICAGO	US
11	9	PRINCETON	US
12	22	NATIONAL UNIVERSITY SINGAPORE	SG
13	39	NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY	SG
14	17=	EPFL	CH
15	10	YALE	US
16	14=	JOHNS HOPKINS	US
17	19	CORNELL	US
18	13	U PENN	US
19=	25=	AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY	AU
19=	16	KING'S COLLEGE LONDON	UK
© QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2004-2015.  *The rankings include universities from 82 countries. Thirty-four countries feature in the Top 200. The US dominates, with 49 institutions, ahead of the UK (30), Netherlands (12), Germany (11), Canada, Australia, and Japan (eight), China (seven), France, Sweden and Hong Kong (five).

NANYANG, The Musical explores the world of Singapore's artist pioneers

Source: SISTIC website.

Director Alec Tok (卓金炎) has returned to the Singapore stage after 15 years spent making theatre abroad. NANYANG, The Musical, a coming-of-age story inspired by the lives and times of Singapore's first-generation artists, reunites lyricist Xiaohan (小寒) and composer Eric Ng (黄韵仁), the song-writing team behind hit musicals such as Liao Zhai Rocks and Lao Jiu, with arrangements by Goh Kheng Long (吴庆隆).  

Produced by One Kind Theatre (艺种戏剧), NANYANG will debut during the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2015 (SIFA), running from 6 to 8 August at the Drama Centre Theatre. The hero is Chen Kang, an up-and-coming painter from Xiamen, China who moves to 1930s Shanghai in a bid to advance his career. While there, he meets a group of kindred spirits with whom he explores and questions the fundamentals of traditional Chinese painting and European Impressionism. Chen even falls in love with one of them: Liying, a talented painter.

But the Japanese invasion of Shanghai and the spread of World War II to Europe drive Chen and his friends out of China and into Southeast Asia, where they became part of the Chinese diaspora in the region known for its collective identity, Nanyang (South Seas). Before settling in Singapore, Chen and his friends make a pivotal trip to Bali, where, inspired by the exoticism of the island, they develop a unique artistic style.

"I am very grateful to SIFA for giving me this opportunity and platform to converse and connect with our Singaporean audience through the language of art and theatre. This will be the first time that my stage work will be seen here after I went off to the US to study at the Yale School of Drama. It has been very exciting because this commission has allowed me to work with some of the best theatre artists practising here and in the region," said Tok.

Tickets are on sale at SISTIC* for the Mandarin musical with English subtitles. Early bird sales, with 20% discount, end on 10 May. There are also discounts for bundles as part of SIFA sales. Tickets range from S$25 to S$75 and could be an opportunity for organising a corporate outing for customers, partners or employees.

*SISTIC's hotline will operate from 10am to 8pm from May 2015.