Speeches
Speech by Minister for Defence Chan Chun Sing at IGNITE Innovation Symposium on 16 July 2026 at CMPB
16 July 2026
A very good morning to all of you.
Every year, when we gather for IGNITE, I am reminded of why we do this. Every year for so many years. This is not just to celebrate what we have achieved — though that matters — but also to challenge ourselves on what we must still do. Today, I want to do both. I want to thank you all for doing what you have done and done so well, but I also want to remind ourselves of the challenges that we have ahead of us.
Let me share with you three things on my mind today.
First, we must continue to do things better.
This is familiar ground, and I do not need to remind all of us of this. We should be proud of the progress we have made. Whether it is streamlining our processes, improving our systems, or finding smarter ways to support our servicemen and women — every incremental improvement counts. In the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), we have always believed that the strength of our organisation lies not just in the hardware that we field, but also in the gumption of our people to keep improving. That spirit must never fade.
But we must be honest with ourselves. Doing things better, on its own, is necessary but no longer sufficient. The world has changed, and the world will continue to change at ever faster speed. The threats that we have to deal with will also continue to evolve at ever faster speed. So while we must never stop doing things better, we cannot stop here and we must also do better things.
What do I mean by that? That means that we must go beyond optimising what we already know. We must work out new scenarios, imagine new threats before they emerge, and develop new concepts of operations that our adversaries have not anticipated. The most dangerous assumption we can make is that tomorrow's challenges will be the same as today or yesterday. We have always been taught that we are not here to prepare for the last operation or the last war.
I would like to see all our engineers, scientists, operators — all of us — ask ourselves this question. Not just "how do I do this better?" but "what should we be doing that we are not doing yet?" This is a much harder question. How to do things better is the easier question; how to do better things is the harder question. It requires imagination, courage, and a willingness to be wrong before we get it right. But this is exactly the kind of spirit that we must have within MINDEF and the SAF. Think of the new scenarios before they emerge. Think of our responses before people think about it, and always have in our pocket something that will surprise the adversaries.
Now third, and perhaps most importantly, in this uncertain world, we must build to last.
This is a challenge that I want all of us to remember. We are now living through a time of profound global disruption. Supply chains are being weaponised. Even geography is being weaponised. The assumptions that we once made about access to critical technologies, components, and systems can no longer be taken for granted.
So what does building to last mean for us? It means two things.
When we do things better, we must achieve an asymmetrical cost advantage — so that we can outlast the threat, even when the threat is patient and persistent. We must not be the side that blinks first because we have run out of options or resources.
When we do better things, we must surprise the threat and stay ahead of it. That means diversifying our supply chain reliance, building in redundancy, and very importantly, developing multiple concepts of operations — so that we are never held ransom by a single supply chain, a single vendor, or a single way of fighting. Resilience is not an option. Resilience is our strategic imperative in a world where everything is disrupted, from supply chains to geography.
The world does not owe us a living as we always say, and it certainly does not owe us any technological edge. That technological edge, that innovative spirit, is something that we must earn and something that we must hone — every year, every generation.
To everyone in this room, I want to thank you all because you are positive examples that can inspire the rest of MINDEF and the SAF to keep going further, stretching our resources, coming up with new innovative concepts every day, every year, every generation.
Remember, we need to do things better, but we need to challenger ourselves to also do better things. And very importantly, we must build to last. We must be more resilient than any of our adversaries, so that we are never held ransom by a single supply chain, a single vendor, or a single operational concept. This is why I constantly challenge ourselves to come up with a diversity of concepts. Look at our supply chains; look for the diversity of supplies, look for a diversity of ways that we can work out our operation execution, so that nobody will think that we can be held ransom. That is the true spirit of being innovative in all our operations.
On that note, congratulations and thank you very much.
More Resources
Innovation and People are Key to Building MINDEF/SAF’s Resilience and Future Readiness