Category: Conferences

SkillsFuture Singapore as a national approach to reskilling

I was recently introduced to SkillsFuture Singapore during The International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (IBSTPI) webinar titled “INTERNATIONAL COMPETENCIES SERIES – PART 1 – Competency‑Based Professionalism: Developing Practice‑Focused Instructional Design Competencies for Continuing Education and Training (CET) Professionals in Singapore’s MAPE Programme”, led by Doris Choy of Nanyang Technological University.

Some reflections are included in this post, including after some research following the call.

What Is SkillsFuture?

SkillsFuture is Singapore’s national approach to lifelong learning, skills, and workforce agility. It provides Singaporeans with opportunities to develop and reskill, with the aim to build (or indeed maintain) their highly skilled, future‑ready workforce. This national effort involves individuals, employers, training partners (including universities), industry bodies, and government working together to build what appears a robust upskilling ecosystem.

The UK versions?

In many ways, the UK’s attempt to build job profiles and reskilling via apprenticeships is similar but you suspect the Singapore model is more robust (it at least sounded that way on the webinar). That said, I do quite like the UK’s “Occupational Maps” that are in public beta. The contradiction there seems to be the demand to move apprenticeships away from reskilling to early careers.

Conclusion

Back to Singapore and The SkillsFuture portal, looks impressive in breadth of programmes and tools available for learners and employers. For individuals, initiatives include discounted training for Singaporeans as mentioned on the webinar.

Intellectual cooperation

A few weeks back I had the joy of attending the book launch of Intellectual Cooperation at the League of Nations. It has been a while since I attended an event like this, I used to sneak into them quite often due to the volume of universities in London, so it was quite a nice change.

Linkedin post with more detail on the event.

Link here to a podcast recorded on the day of the event by the organizers with a couple of the contributors.

At the event, one interesting aspect of the research was mentioned – that part of the League’s work in the area of intellectual cooperation was investigating if common textbooks could be created for global use. In the post-WWI environment, this was an idea to help tackle global issues but the idea can clearly be seen today – for example in the desire to decolonialize curricula, provide global resources via OERs and related topics such as open access publishing. Whilst the LoN’s “Committee of textbook experts” had little success, more success was had in areas including student exchange, again, something in the 2025/2026 news given the UK’s possible reentrance to Erasmus.

Overall, worth a read (or at least a podcast listen) for anyone with an interest in the history of international organizations and/or education.

Preparing for the 2025 GLOW Conference

The 2025 GLOW Conference promises a rich program of sessions, empowering attendees from every time zone.​​

This year, I join an inspiring roster of presenters drawn from every corner of the globe. As part of my contribution, I will be sharing insights into the critical, yet often hidden, work of Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) — exploring their pivotal role in enabling technological progress, fostering international collaboration, and supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.​

SDOs are collaborative bodies that bring together experts from industry, academia, government, civil society and other groups to develop consensus-based standards. These standards are essential for facilitating global trade, ensuring product compatibility, promoting safety, and accelerating innovation.

In my 20 minutes session, I will quickly aim to demystify the standards development orgs and demonstrate how educators, researchers, and other professionals can get involved with SDOs to help bridge the gap between emerging technologies and real-world applications. I will also examine how SDOs work with educators to inspire the next generation of leaders.

Actionable Innovations Global YouTube for past sessions.

Registration for this year.

Connection

A few recent experiences have got me thinking again about the nature of interpersonal connection.

I was going to post here (or LinkedIn) to reflect on the all-encompassing nature of a work event. Being face-to-face (for me – it was also hybrid), 14 hours-ish days for a week and in a new environment (my first trip to India) meant this led to connection changes at an emotional level. This trip deepened existing relationships, built new ones and probably damaged a few too. Part of why I did not do a follow-up post was two weeks of (Covid?) sickness that followed the event. I was also struggling to articulate the benefits of such an event whilst not ignoring my own views on the power of online tools for connection building. I think most people attending the event would agree that the in-person nature amplified outcomes. However, as is the often the case with in-person training, meetings, conferences, etc. this amplification often comes from social time, coffee breaks, etc. that are too often ignored in online environments. Indeed, I even had a conversation with an attendee of one of my sessions on how we could capture just some of the same energy into online learning environments. Now, as someone with an online learning background, I argued that such energy can be captured online. However, it is difficult and time needs to be given to the design and intended outcomes (just as the hours that had gone into the in-person event).

Since that trip to India, I watched the documentary “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin“. I will start with a warning that the documentary is a tear-jerker and the rest of this blog post will be spoiler filled…

The documentary starts with the concerns of parents whose son has died aged 25. He has suffered from a condition that restricted his ability to perform activities that most us would consider “everyday”. His parents are particularly concerned that he does not have a group of friends (from school or elsewhere) during this time and that he, in their eyes, withdrew from life by playing World of Warcraft around 12 hours a day. However, they soon realize that many other players considered him their friend. What is remarkable on the topic of connection, is the impact this man had on the lives of others via only text chat and activities in the game world. This reminded me that lasting and impactful relationships are certainly not restricted to in-person activities and that we should not assume everyone has a preference for one medium over an other. As a side note, the bespoke kit that allowed him to do this, even as his muscular condition worsened, deserves a lot of credit as an example of assistive technology.

Then, in the last few days, I have finally met a colleague (from another organization) in-person after over a year of working together. They might disagree, but I would say we already had a good working relationship, had met deadlines, knew each other a bit, connected not just with each other but with others, etc. So, why then do I still tend to say I have “met” someone when I have met them in-person rather than “talked” if it is someone I have met virtually (email, Zoom, Teams, etc.). Perhaps I am an old-fashioned and my language here would not be what others would consider using. In this regard, I am reminded of a documentary I saw about Twitch and how some of the participants described the platform as equivalent to having those same friends in a living room with them.

Another reason I was slow to post about India was that I was not entirely sure on the conclusion. Indeed, I am not sure if there’s really a conclusion to this extended post either. Perhaps one take-away is that in-person activity can lead to a rapid acceleration of connection due to heightened emotion, also impacting on memory through sensory stimulation. However, long last relationships can be built digitally and should be maintained via those routes. Risks of non-engagement or lack of connection exist in all situations (in-person, hybrid and remote) meaning a remaining importance for human skills of facilitating, event design, etc. in our increasingly AI-powered social and workplace settings.

Skipping the Learning Technologies show (again)

Not all that long ago, a year without attending the Learning Technologies show would have seemed unfeasible. The exhibition (and occasionally the conference) was a key part of my annual networking, current awareness and personal development.

Instead I am now nearing a decade without attending – having attended the main exhibition in 2016 and the Summer Forum conference in 2017.

Covid has a played a role here in my low attendance of in-person events, but there has also been a shift in the focus of my roles to broader topics than learning (technology) as well as a move to webinars, podcasts (more on that coming in a future post), LinkedIn Learning, and other sources for personal development.

I post this as the end of day one of the conference/exhibition closes – predictably, from a quick look on LinkedIn, all the talk is about AI. That said, following events via LinkedIn is certainly not as good an experience as Twitter/TweetDeck used to be.

For those who are attending in April 2025: I hope you find it useful, and I will certainly try and be there in 2026 for my 10th anniversary of last time.