Speech by Mr Teo Chee Hean, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, at the Defence Technology Prize Award Ceremony

Distinguished guests,Fellow colleagues,Ladies and gentlemen,Good afternoon.

What Defence Technology means to the SAF and SingaporeAs a small country with limited resources, manpower and space, Singapore has always worked hard to find innovative solutions to the changing and complex challenges we face. The area of defence is no different. Since the earliest years of the SAF, science and technology have played a central role in shaping the SAF's development to achieve our national defence mission and to overcome our natural constraints of size and population. Not all advanced technology and platforms are suited to our environment and needs; and even if they were, they are not always available from the open market - every country guards carefully its best technology.

It was this realisation that led to the establishment of the Electronics Test Centre in 1972. Its purpose - to build up secret-edge Research and Development (R&D) capabilities in key areas such as electronic warfare, guided systems and cryptography. Today, the Electronics Test Centre has grown into the DSO National Laboratories, one of the components that forms Singapore's defence ecosystem. This is just one example of how far we have come. An Evolution in our Defence Technology Community Over the years, our defence technology community has moved up the value chain, adopting, adapting and developing defence systems to meet our evolving needs. In the early days, we adopted technologies from our foreign partners. We were able to produce and equip our soldiers with foreigndesigned weapons, such as the M-16 assault rifles. More recently, we have indigenously developed a few of our own platforms and military components, such as the world's first compact and fully-tracked Armoured Countermine Vehicle. We named it the Trailblazer, and I think this is apt because there will be many more capabilities that we will design and develop in-house.

Defence Technology StrategyA key piece of our defence technology strategy is organisational adaptation. In the last few years, we have taken steps to integrate the various nodes in our defence technology community to consolidate expertise and derive greater synergy. For a start, we brought together our technology and operations communities and forged an "ops-tech" partnership. Doing so enables our defence engineers to better understand the SAF's operational environment, priorities and concerns. At the same time, our SAF officers are better able to appreciate what the latest technological developments are, and what our R&D agencies can do. So this fusion of our operational and technological expertise creates an environment which facilitates the co-evolution of ideas and concepts. It helps that many of our defence engineers are themselves operationally ready national servicemen, and that many of our SAF combat officers and warrant officers have an engineering and technical background.

Our defence technology strategy also involves close collaboration with our local defence industry. This partnership has seen the successful development indigenously of advanced systems such as the Army's Battlefield Management System, the Navy's Combat Management System, as well as platforms such as the Bionix Infantry Fighting Vehicle and the Pegasus Light Weight Howitzer. I am also heartened that indigenously-produced systems like the Bronco all-terrain tracked carrier and the Landing Ship Tank (LST) have found export markets. It demonstrates that our defence eco-system is able to develop and field defence systems, of high operational capability which meet the demanding needs not just of the SAF, but of other modern armed forces.

The Importance of our PeopleThe achievements that I have highlighted (and there are others that I am unable to reveal), are possible only because of the relentless effort, commitment and innovation by the more than 5,000 scientists and engineers in our defence ecosystem. Research and development can be a long and arduous activity, but it is exciting, and satisfying, like an intellectual climb of Mount Everest that challenges the creativity, determination and fortitude of all its team members. I am therefore very pleased to be here this afternoon to join you in recognising me of our people who have made inspiring contributions towards sharpening the technological edge of the SAF. You have shown audacity to climb higher peaks, look beyond the horizon, and seek uncharted paths to transform the SAF. We have awarded the Defence Technology Prize annually since 1989, to outstanding individuals and groups for their sterling contributions in defence science and technology. Since then, we have given out the DTP to 25 individuals and 61 teams. I am glad that nearly 90% of the individual winners - 22 out of the 25, are still working in, or contributing in one way or another, to our defence and larger security ecosystem. Many of them are now holding technical leadership or senior management appointments in our defence technology ecosystem itself.

Of the 61 projects that have won DTP team prizes in these past twenty years, more than 90% have been deployed into the SAF, of which nearly three-quarters are still operational today. Such achievements demonstrate the true success of the DTP as not just an academic pursuit of advanced technologies, but application-inspired technologies with high potential for fielding. These prize-winning projects, which include white, grey and black projects, have made significant contributions to the capability of the SAF.

This year, two individuals and five teams will join the ranks of our DTP winners. The individual DTP award in the R&D category and Engineering category go to Dr Geoffrey Tan and Mr William Lau respectively. Over the years, Dr Geoffrey Tan has designed and developed several advanced and innovative energetic systems for the SAF, and facilities that validate their effects and ensure the safety of such systems. Mr William Lau's illustrious career spans various appointments in the defence community. A pioneer in real-time command and control systems, Mr Lau has been instrumental in the development of advanced software and information security capabilities, such as the Command and Control system on board our Maritime Patrol Aircraft.

The three DTP team prize winners in the R&D category, all from the DSO National Laboratories, are the Advanced Antenna Team, the Advanced Radar Team and the Infocomm Security Team. Much as I would like to highlight their outstanding achievements, the secret edge capabilities that they have delivered are best kept, well, secret. But if you join DSO National Laboratories, you may get to take the work in these areas further, and discover what they are.

There are two awards in the DTP team prize, Engineering category. The first goes to the Countermine Vehicle Team. Comprising members from ST Kinetics, DSTA and the Army, the team successfully integrated innovative features and advanced technology to develop the Trailblazer, which I had mentioned earlier. The second goes to the Mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Team for the development of Skyblade III. The Mini-UAV Team, with members from the Singapore Army, DSTA, DSO National Laboratories and ST Aerospace, is a good example of our whole-ofecosystem approach to defence capability development. It involved the full-time attachment of a DSO engineer to ST Aerospace to lead the engineering team and facilitate the sharing of DSO's know-how. This, and the close working relationship between all members, ensured that SKYBLADE III met the SAF's stringent specifications1 and was developed in a timely manner.

My heartiest congratulations to all the winners. Thank you for your excellent work. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone in our defence technology family. Your creativity, resourcefulness and commitment to Singapore's defence will continue to be instrumental as the SAF transforms into the 3rd Generation fighting force.

Thank you.