Speech by Senior Minister of State for Defence, Mr Heng Chee How, for BrainHack 2024

Good afternoon my colleagues, as well as dear participants, press, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to BrainHack 2024.

BrainHack is organised by DSTA, which is the Defence Science and Technology Agency, and this is the sixth year of this contest. The aim is to offer young tech-enthusiasts like yourselves an immersive experience into the world of digital and defence technologies.  I was sharing with my colleagues as I arrived earlier, thanking them for inviting me. I must have attended at least four times out of the six editions. As a result, I could see how this event has grown with each edition. I understand for this year, the inter-school categories have been introduced to spice up the competition, and engineering use-cases were also added to the technology showcase.

Defence Engineers of Tomorrow

This year's BrainHack is titled "Imagine What's Next". It is about challenging ourselves on how we adopt technology in novel ways to improve our lives and defend what is good and important. I heard that you had the opportunity to build tools to detect fake news, to participate in solving cyber puzzles, and to exploit space data to gain insight on climate change among others. These hands-on experiences reflect the technological challenges that we face today, which will include amongst others, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality, and fake news detection. I hope that this journey into the world of our defence engineers has given you a glimpse of how they apply cutting-edge technologies for challenging and meaningful mission requirements. I also hope that this might perhaps enticed you to eventually consider a career in defence technology. We certainly would need bright and enterprising young minds like yourselves to help us overcome these present and future challenges.

In fact, I am happy to share that many of our defence engineers and scientists started out just like you - participating in BrainHack. One example would be Ms Jeslyn Peh, who is a cybersecurity engineer with DSTA. Her interest in cybersecurity began in Junior College when she participated in the cyber defence discovery camp. Today, she works with DSTA on enhancing the security of MINDEF and the SAF's cloud platform.

I am certainly very pleased to note that interest in BrainHack has grown significantly as I mentioned earlier. In 2019, there were 1,500 participants to BrainHack. This year, that number has grown to 4,000. I trust that the organisers have made this year's activities more exciting than before. I hope that you have found BrainHack a valuable platform to learn and grow your skillsets, as well as to foster new friendships over a shared interest in digital technologies.

For those who are interested, and I hope many of you would be, our fourth service in the SAF, which we started just a couple of years ago, is called the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS). DIS has also launched the Sentinel Programme, which provides a cybersecurity curriculum for interested students in Secondary Schools, JCs, polytechnics and ITEs.

I hope that these opportunities will inspire the tech-enthusiasts amongst you to take on the exciting challenge of becoming a defence engineer or a scientist.

Defence Technology Landscape

What you see at Brainhack is the tip of the iceberg in the defence technology that our Defence Technology Community, comprising DSTA, DSO, and CSIT, is working on. The use of technology in warfare has been evolving rapidly, and the SAF must not only keep pace with these developments, but must endeavour and stay ahead of these threats. For example, I think all of us, whether you know in detail or not, would know that there is a war going on now for more than two years in Europe, between Russia and Ukraine. Just to quote an example from that war, Ukraine has used technology by using AI to map which Russian forces are likely to be more vulnerable, like being low on morale and supplies. They use this information and knowledge to help their forces make more effective plans of attack and to be able to speed up and scale.  Ukraine has also employed the use of drones creatively, from using first-person-view drones that carry anti-tank warheads in order to strike tanks, to using drones for 3D mapping to document war crimes at the affected location. The Russians are not sitting still either. They too have learned from the fighting and they are also improving their technology and the applications of those technologies. So what it really means is that technology continues to evolve and there are a lot of real time learning ongoing. You will keep moving and you will keep moving faster and faster. What that means for us in Singapore is we try to make sure that we are able to defend ourselves because the reality is that if we cannot defend ourselves, we can only depend on others to defend us. So, we must be able to defend ourselves, and we have to look at the reality and do whatever it takes to make sure we are able to.

To give you an idea of some of these multi-domain challenges that combine digital and physical systems, this year's BrainHack had demonstrated counter-drone and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors use-cases. This ability to employ digital technologies in combat platforms and weapons systems is not an easy endeavour and it requires all the skills, talent and imagination of and from our Defence Technology Community.

Our defence engineers and scientists need to not just be "in-the-know" of a large spectrum of technologies, but also be skilled in understanding modern military operations and how various technologies can be integrated and applied to give tangible outcomes. We enable the SAF to defend our cyber, information and intelligence domains. Looking beyond the digital domain and into the physical, we provide sophisticated weapon systems complemented by digital technologies to enhance the combat effectiveness of our Armed Forces; the Army, Navy and Airforce. To support our defence engineers and scientists, we build their competencies through curated training programmes. Our people also have opportunities to partner with top-notch companies and universities around the world to learn from, and co-develop software solutions with local and international experts for challenging first-of-a-kind projects.

Closing

For all of you who have joined us as part of this BrainHack and part of this community, we believe that you are dedicating your time and talent towards using technology for good. I hope that BrainHack has ignited your interest in defence technology and has inspired you to further your passion for lifelong learning in this important domain of digital defence.

Finally, I thank the participating schools, our partners, and the organising team for making BrainHack 2024 a success. The success of any event comes from the enthusiasm of those participating and certainly also resting on the tireless efforts of those working behind the scenes to make things possible and run smoothly. Kudos to each and every one of you.

On this note, congratulations again and thank you very much.