 Okay ladies take a seat Good morning everyone Great to see you here bright and early for the first and most dynamic session of the entire day We've got a fantastic lineup of speakers today And I'm gonna ask them to introduce themselves one by one and we can start down the end with Cassie Hi, can you hear me? Hi everyone. Good morning. My name is Casey Chan and I'm the APEC strategy and operations lead for our product partnerships team at Google I actually did a math degree in Imperial College Proud to say I'm still being laughed at for being a math graduate, but proud of it Probably as you will see a little far from a math graduate, but go stand Hi, good morning everybody. My name is Serene. I'm the managing director Oracle Singapore I'm also a vice president in Running the cloud platform team within Oracle cloud platform means most are the cool stuff Yeah, whether it's in they are all the Codings of all the nice stuff the AI and all this yeah, I Study computer science and I didn't want to disappoint my parents So I continue to be continued in the computer science Although I didn't go on to coding. Yeah, but I Decided to switch the day when I came out school and go into the IT I know I couldn't do coding somewhat because sitting behind computer get me migraine So then I knew I couldn't I can't disappoint my parents So I told them to my boss. Can you let me try hybrid model? I started half coding and half marketing So and where I am now that purely on the sales and marketing and running a business nice meeting all of y'all Good morning, everyone My name is Jesse Xia. So I'm currently the managing director for ThoughtWorks Southeast Asia So in my current role, I'm responsible for operations results and the business strategy and also the new capability development for ThoughtWorks Singapore and Thailand so I've actually worked in a number of Consulting and operations roles in my 13-year journey in this company and I have a very Wide range of interests. So one of the things I really enjoy learning every day That's also the strong reason I joined ThoughtWorks which provides a Perfect platform for me to continue develop myself and stretch myself Hi everyone, my name is Siu Chiu. So I am the managing director of the consumer bank Technology team in DBS We are the bank who wants you to live more bankless My team is actually in charge of all the the apps that you use the Pela the internet banking and so on As well as the big data technology for the bank I graduated with a computer science from NUS many many years ago did too much development coding many many years ago I wouldn't tell you how many years but too much. Yeah, that's me So we have amazing ladies ahead of me Doing a very fabulous introduction. So now my heart is pounding. Who is Elaine? I'm gonna feel a bit stressed, but anyway. Good morning. My name is Elaine Liu I'm a student. I'm a pianist The only advanced keyboard I play in my life is the piano So that's me The second part of me is I spend 30 years in the IT The last couple of position I felt were VP of SAP Oracle and the most recent is IBM Cloud COO So that's my little background and last but not least I do a lot of Outside of corporate work. I'm currently board advisor to a couple of SMEs as well as the Indonesian cloud Association in Indonesia. Thank you Thank you ladies really looking forward to our discussion today And and just by way of introduction. I run mentoring programs for young business women here in Singapore and I'm really passionate about the advancement of women. I know absolutely nothing about coding and My first job although my first job was with IBM, but it certainly wasn't in the tech space So I'm just here to ask the questions and encourage some amazing responses from Our panelists today. So I'm gonna start off talking about STEM So as technology advances and becomes available to all with more businesses and SMEs no longer seeing Technology as a luxury. This is the best time to be in STEM in Singapore in particular that there is a push for more women in STEM as it moves towards becoming a smart nation and More women are being encouraged to pursue careers in this area to reap the benefits So question for serene is so with the three most Indomand skills being artificial intelligence big data and cloud computer being lost to Organized organizations overseas and with a push by companies for local talent There appears to be no better time for women to be in STEM How can we both encourage and support more women in STEM and what what can organizations do to ensure? They are included developed and retained very good question now you we all know technology will continue to Challenge or to disrupt the global talent marketplace, and that will not go away and question for us is Subsmart team smart people like you here. How do we respond to changes? Yeah, and also Individually as an employees and also employers a company both we need to take a concerted effort Now we must put in effort as to how we deal with this so in Oracle So as a company at what Oracle does is we use AI and we you also use the things on the machine learning We use analytics tool to look at what are the future jobs the relevant skills that the employees Should go and continue to learn now to embrace the lifelong learning so that will make all of us jobs relevant and that will Kind of like you know future proof the skills in Oracle We are very fortunate We empower employees to you know Continue on the those ground-up movements program like woman leadership, which we call OWL over My colleague will be happy to hear about this over with OWL Well, and we also have the other program called Oracle Pride Employee Network. It's an open community. So we want to encourage People from a different kind of background different of the challenges that they face in life to come together So we are all being empowered to do that and in Singapore I must say we are quite fortunate because we these environments are very diversified environment And the inclusions are there as well. Yeah Now for Oracle, we we do have a lot of women in the leadership position So I must say that I'm fortunate to start off with I'm here to represent Oracle as a country managing director To speak to you as a woman and if you visit our booth right behind You will see many women there That representing Oracle. So I must really thank you and kudos to all of them who are here on Saturday And in yeah, give them a wave at the back. Can I visit them? Make sure you get something from them Thank you And in for Singapore beside me as a country MD and also VP for cloud platform My my apps are business leader is also woman. Yeah, and my Southeast Asia HR is also woman My they are my in the engineered system You think that something very hard technical is also run by the woman our Digital prime new team also run by the woman in the ASEAN and as well as in Singapore Even the most technical part on the on our cloud platform is also run by the woman So I'm very proud that we have we are surrounded by all the women's around us And this is where it would not be possible if the company are not giving us the equal opportunity Yeah, both in in terms of promotion appraisal training and all those so that's something I must say that we are very fortunate to be in Oracle Yeah, and also Continuously as a company HR make sure that we train all people about this Unconscious bias so when you hire when you do appraisal when you do a people management, you know what to do Yeah, so that is also another thing that we do in Oracle Thank you. Thank you so much Thoreen. It's great to see so many women from Oracle here today as well. Thank you Now Jesse and Elaine neither of you studied computer science. However, you've remained relevant in the tech world So what career advice? Could you give some of the young women in the audience who would like to move into technology? Do you see any link from your previous work to what you do today and How did you make the transition? Okay, I'll go first Is it working? Okay? I must be nervous then Too many questions. Yeah, I cannot remember all but I'll just start with the first which is what makes me choose technology I was Economics and statistics money and finance graduate My classmates were all going to the banks. We're all going to the ministries We're all going to the ministry of statistics and all and I was supposed to get a job also in one on the area and One day I woke up and I was trying to apply for jobs and I said hey, what is this? IBM and what is this system sales? So what is systems? What is sales? I don't know and I applied and Two weeks later, I got a call. It was a Saturday morning Hello Elaine. I said yes. Oh, you applied this job. Oh, yes. I did Do you think we can have this time and have an interview? I said certainly and I put down the phone and said so what am I gonna do? I don't know what to prepare So I went I saw my my boss then right which was the interviewer. He said oh money and finance I said yes, sir. Oh, you play the piano. Yes, sir. Oh You do cooking. Yes, sir. That's my hobby. Okay, you got the job. I said why I Said why did I get a job? He said, you know what we need diversity? So diversity happened 30 years ago and I was the only woman selling Hardware systems that I don't know what it is. There were cables. There were network and I Memorized every single part of the laptop PCs hardware mainframe By numbers and at that time IBM remember remote controller 5394 dumb terminals 3191 it got into me until 30 years I remember in my head right, but I was thankful to the manager He said because of diversity, but that's not really true That's because he said he loved to have his daughter playing piano And he didn't have a daughter and I was like a daughter. I was thankful But by the way for 30 years, I still keep contact with this Man that changed my life Now what keeps me going? Technology, there's no Concept of old or new Every day is new Today you learn something tomorrow you learn something the next day you learn something you are never too late All right, so I got in thanks to the boss then I realized that I need to learn but I learned through the years I realized that you are never too late because there's always new technology So let me give you a few terms that are awful Pascal Kobo Right SQL then visual basic then C++ and then dida dida then database has changed and your lotus You then you got SharePoint. I'm just saying names I still cannot code. All right, I Still cannot call but I live with the kind of imagination. I can call it, but I embrace the technology So the most important is There's nothing too late Technology is the baseline of all our lives now. There's no specialization, but they're pervasive You embrace it now. That's an enabler just like you learn music. It gives you certain creativity You learn art. It gives you some flair learning coding It is also giving you some thought process and then analytical mind. So that's the way to go Believe me. You see, I'm still alive All right. Thank you. Thank you So I probably share some a bit different experience. So in my 22 years Experiencing the jobs and I actually did quite a few job transition not job transition Sorry, road transitions in the in the one company actually only working in three companies so far But in both the two companies I had a quite few times of road changes and those changes actually are quite big But I just can I mean I mean in my early career. I was a content There are a few changes, but I want to only give a one example is a I Think about 10 years ago. I was changing from the role I was an actual head of people for Thore's China. So he's a company level Management role. I was in the leadership team and then I changed to a IT business analyst So you probably couldn't believe the things trigger for that. It wasn't because I didn't perform well it was Because I was in the global leadership development program and my leadership coach suggests to me to Make a big change make big shift to unlock my growth potential Otherwise, I'll only stay in this a human resources development Operational things but not looking at other things. So it was a huge risk as a it was about a Had a 10-year experience already It's kind of you can continue building your career in that area and you did pretty well already then you take a risk you start something from almost zero and So it was very very painful experience, but fortunately that wasn't the first time So I did some crazy things before that already And so it's big very big risk and I was really painful in the first a few months But then when I look back reflect on the things the feeling like a you know, if It's actually create a lot of possibilities for the future. It was a good move and The other thing is when you really sign up that and I think I would give a suggestion is having a growth Mindset, I think there's a book talking about this as well. So when you have already make a decision So try to see more opportunities than blockers I know you have a probably have a lot of executions to say, oh, I cannot do this I don't have an education background in this or I don't have a resources like that Oh, I don't have a good parents who can you know support me etc Yeah, you do have a lot of executions But you have no choice just look at more opportunities than blockers And I think everyone already said this a lifelong learning for for your whole life I know so never late to do to learn anything you can learn technology even in your previous 10 year You didn't do technology at all. You could do it. Yeah Thank you And what resonates with those answers with me is a lot of women don't apply for jobs unless they can do You know 60 to 80 percent of the work you can apply for a job if you can only do 40 percent because most of the learning will Be on the job and I think we've just heard great examples of that So don't be frightened to apply even if you don't know everything. You'll never know everything So to as technology takes on new meaning and continues to disrupt and change the way we work and play and I'm thinking here of grab Airbnb Bitcoin SpaceX How can we best prepare ourselves for the fast-paced ever-changing future? Thanks for the questions Luis. I Think the key thing is actually continuous learning So the people say change is constant, but actually change is accelerating. It's not even constant So what you know from school, you know, X years ago will be actually irrelevant now So the only thing that will keep you go, you know relevant is actually continue to learn new things So that that is quite important at DBS You know, we are in this industry that is facing the biggest disruption of all time right now You know, we are 50 years old We have a lot of new old technology, but we have a lot of disruptors with all the new technology So we have big program to to reskill our people Whether it is a bootcamp for people to learn how to write Python You might be a cobalt developers. We still have cobalt developers in the bank. We have cobalt systems But we have a lot of other system in spark in Java and so on We have big programs to retrain all our people On the other hand, we also need our people to understand business So we have a program called back to school where actually volunteer from the Business as well as IT. IT will teach IT and business will attend and business will teach business and IT will attend So, you know, this kind of we call back to school happens all the time based on a voluntary Basis and actually finally we also have coding schools for for anyone who wants to learn how to code and you will find that Actually, we have secretaries. We have our head of business who actually attend coding schools to learn how to develop systems So, you know, I think that learning mindset is is very important But as a company, we actually can provide all of this support, but to us you have to own your own development right, so we also Give self-service access subscription to safari with all the technical books and conferences we have, you know various credits to to various companies, you know, certification program Coursera and so on. So learning is at your fingertips I think the key point is that you have to own your own development to be continued to be relevant You must have actually not just IQ you you have to have CQ C stands for curiosity. So you That is more important because IQ can be outdated, but if you have CQ you continue to be relevant and get to know new things and I would say finally I would like to leave you with a code from this book I read sometime back. It's called the startup of you by Reed Hoffman the founder of a Lincoln He said that you should always strive to be in permanent beta. You are always in a beta version Yeah, so if you have that mindset, I think you you will continue to be relevant Fantastic. Could I could I add to that? I resonate so much with everything that you just said at Google Actually, we do have this big principle and mantra where it's launch and iterate, which I think a lot of you know I recently went on a women leadership program and one of the things we really suffer from as women is The need to be perfect. So hands up here. Who doesn't actually suffer from that? So I see about maybe five hands So the rest of us like really do and it's a notion I shared It's so important for us to remember the mantra of launch and iterate. We will never be perfect never These amazing women here will work For many years know that and they are saying yes to that and the thing is to recognize that we don't have to be and it's the mantra of constantly taking risks and being out there and then Continuously learning and improving as we go along and that is the one thing we should always be true to Fantastic, that's great Great advice. I'd just like to say I am perfect, but you know Some of us have to be that's my that's that's that's that's how I view the world anyway Okay, Serene just a quick one for you You know in light of Oracle's recently announced collaboration with skills future Singapore What skills do you believe are essential to flourish in this new age and how can we acquire them? Yeah? All right. We are very excited that this opportunity to sign the MOU with skills future Singapore SSG in short and It's to really help them to to support the national agenda Yeah, we're as much as Singapore is progressing and they also do not want to leave anyone behind So you should take advantage of this skill future framework Which is they cut across from the entire hiring all the way to appraisal and in your promotion and everything So it's a very well thought-off kind of a framework that developed by government All right in terms of the skills, yeah, you probably heard a lot of those things so it back to to me four points Yeah, first is on how do you becoming a tag fluent? Like Elaine say that you must know PASCA cobalt but not nursery you need to know how to do a coding Yeah, but at least there's some knowledge in that right coding girls that founder and could cite a very good example Yeah, and from not studying in comm science. I went into setting out the website So code coding 21 or is a 2 1c? These are all the the non-profit organization that available out there today for you to take advantage of Yeah, and the tech fluent is also not necessary. It's not just to understand how technology works But what it can deliver? What can you get out this? Yeah, so if you are in Business strategies, you need to understand how technology disrupt your business. What should be your new business model? Yeah, so having that mindset to look at the trend look at what you need to do is important And if you are in marketing, you need to understand that today if you are doing a just pure event You may not be able to get as many customer Yeah, or if you do not have the total view of single view of your customer You will lose the opportunity to do upsell cross-sells and all those so every technology apply to different Your different roles in a different way. Yeah, so it's not just to understand how technology works It's really to understand how it can help you to deliver a good result from there So that's the point number one that how do you becoming a tech a fluent in tech? Second point is like we all say I know I'm being asked to just speed up because there's a time When we don't see the notes every time overrun. All right So second for I thought I constrained myself only four points I want to talk about second one we talk every one of us here agreed to embrace the lifelong learning You should not stop keep learning and that's that is the Important mentor that your principal in your life. Yeah, and the third one is also Change is not a constant change is an accelerator Yeah, change is also something it take it become a norm if you see some changes in your company They restructure again. Do we do this again? Do not crumble just accept it because every change give you opportunity Yeah, and that's the third point and the last point is definitely. I think It's not just about tech skill honing or harnessing some unique human skills is very important All right. This forum is a perfect place where you do networking. I have two girls 19 and 17 years old The 17 ones will always tell me mommy. I got no friends Yeah, his friend is phone and the love social media link in Twitter Instagram or whatever snapchat So but networking is very important and that is the skill that beyond just IQ CQ curiosity and the EQ part. That's also very important so that's to me the fourth one in here make time to network yeah and That's something that I learned from Luis if you have no time for network for networking you have no time for your own career Yeah, thank you Which leads us to the next question. Thanks for bringing in the soft skill side because I want to open this up to Cassie But we haven't really heard from enough yet So if you if you look into your crystal ball, where do you believe the future of work lies in the next five years? And what do you believe diversity? Once typically referred to as gender only will really mean in an AI world We have a joke where I I'm a strategy and operations person by default I do a lot planning and many of us won a five-year plan and I kid you not We actually said we can't predict five years. I can't predict five years I mean I work at Google and I don't know what we're gonna launch next. Oh, you know what? I don't have a crystal ball. We do It's just so it's just staying relevant I honestly don't think we can predict where technology is gonna go and you know, you are the future generation, right? I would say stay true to ourselves and be curious and constantly be solving problems. That's what we do That's what we philosophize on firstly It's you know, what is our what is the biggest challenge and any of our users face in a country and then? The diversity expert is really really huge in Google. We practice actually product design for inclusive product design and also we have AI principles that some of you may have come across You know all the way from top down Which is very much about you know designing for everyone. Okay now a bit of an occasion space here When one of my favorite questions to ask people is what do you mean by diversity and a lot of times you get the you know Gender I think everyone knows the gender, but I can't cover all the way. I'm gonna try okay diversity for us means gender ethnicity culture background social economics disability seniority I'm sure I miss something So the thing is we all come from a different background and as women we come from different contexts And that's so important in tomorrow's world Jesse would you like to add to anything anything to that add a little as they cover a lot already But I just want to say like we all know like artificial intelligence actually doing a lot of things and in my in our lives already but just keeping in mind those machines are very good at doing the To handle the vast quality of data and then they can find the the needles in the haystack But the human are the ones to evaluate those needles and to decide what to do with them And then so this really require a lot of things like a human experience Common sense and also your emotional intelligence and those things you can really develop including the networking right building Relationship a human relationship as well. So I guess just add to that so beside learning technology Which I think is a key thing and you can learn coding or you just know the technology actually I mean also in the afternoon I heard that there's a lot of workshops and my colleagues also running workshop on technology and design thinking human experience design as well So learning those things but also And then building up your soft skills which you will succeed in the future as well Yeah, just just to close that off we get out we get our jobs We we successful at interviews because we have the technology or we have the the knowledge But what keeps our job is our ability to build relationships to problem-solve to collaborate to network and To really build those solid relationships within organizations. Otherwise you can't negotiate You can't influence effectively. So please don't ignore those those very important soft skills We're about to come come up with our last closing question And I always like to end on a high note and to also Look at actions that you can take to make sure that you remain relevant or become relevant in The current work environment so the question I'm posing for every every one of the panelists is what is the one thing you did in your career That's prepared you for the future So Rather than the past I would say what's in it for me in the future, right? It's no point saying in the past I just came back from China and why I spend some weeks at Tencent we chat and Alibaba Why did I do that? I prepare myself for my future as an example We chat it's a powerful platform Alibaba is amazing Not just a team all but the back end and the Suongxi the festival so even I at this age I'm a student So I think it's very important. You recognize what is important You must like it. You cannot say it's important But I don't like it and then you're not doing it You must have the preference the interest and build the strength So I believe these three elements will help all of us to go a longer path ahead Yeah, thank you So for me is I would say the you know take risk always be outside of a comfort zone Don't do the same rule for more than three years. I never do the same rule anytime I tell my boss if it's three years, you know, I'm gonna have to change to another role Yeah, so I just remember a sentence of an article I wrote a few years back Which is very relevant to this So I'm trying to remember the words so a journey is characterized not only by happiness Struggles and achievement making more Memorable and the meaningful So what is the key is to challenge yourself to keep moving out of your comfort zone Very good. Mine is I always thinking how do I or how do we be successful with zero talent? Right So how do you do it? It's really how to get better at getting better Right, so you stretching your boundary comfort zone stretch the limit and you also that be very focused Passionate and be very focused in what you are doing. Yeah, and that's how to really be successful with zero talent I share a lot of what the other women have said, but I would say Actually surround yourself with supporting networks surround yourself with amazing people and constantly be encouraged Thank you all very much and I That last comment absolutely resonates because I always talk about how do you create your board of directors? and We give you that challenge Who will be on your board of directors who will be mentoring you who will be sponsoring you internally and who's going to support you? Because you'll need every single one of them to become who you want to be so with that I'd like to thank our fantastic panelists really wonderful working with all of you and learning from all of you and Have a great day today and Just get out there and do whatever it is that makes you happy that you're passionate about and Don't worry about what anyone else says about you because what other people think of you is none of your business