Proposed projects

Instructions on sponsor engagement

The information has been updated in July 2022. As many teams may be approaching sponsors, sponsors will discuss with the various teams and decide which team to work with. If your team has already confirmed a project with a sponsor, please let the faculty manager know so that we can update the website for other students.

Projects

Project(s) proposed by Gemstory World Pte Ltd

Project #1

Project Title: Enhance/Improve Customer Retail Experience through knowledge based learning and interactive media (Videos, Profiling Test, Infographics etc)

Project Description: Create a solution that allow customers to be profiled when they enter the retail store based on their wants and needs to help them in the selection of the different types of gems and products available. Understand their mind state or their requirements by allowing them to answer a few simple questions from the app to identify their emotional mind state, their energy levels, and help them in their shopping journey.

Embed videos with illustrations of the different gems healing properties and guide them along their selection journey to effectively allow them to be directed to the correct location of where the gems and products are located. This can help save a lot of time for us to talk to every individual walked in customers.

Core Deliverable: Digital Solution for Customers Profiling Software or App to enhance in store customers experience. Create digital solution to help to identify customers journey within retail outlet to help analyse and profile every customer who walked in to the store. Track and collect data analytics to enhance customer experience via the data collected.

Point of Contact: Glenn Poh glennpoh@gemstory.asia

Project(s) proposed by Carecam

Project #1

Project Title: Visual AI medical toolkit on edge device

Carecam is a venture-backed spinoff that aims to research, develop and commercialize transformational visual understanding AI, that will significantly enhance the visual acuity of medical professionals

In this project, we will co-develop a new assessment tool for medical clinicians, which tend to lack access to digital and objective solutions. Currently, physiotherapists or geriatrics rely heavily on subjective and inefficient visual analysis with their patients, which is time-consuming, error-prone and lacks data insights.

The students are challenged to build a mobile application system with a microservice architecture. Students are required to develop an end-to-end solution recommended by them. As for the operating logic, students would be required to package the Tensorflow lite model and deploy it onto iOS or Android platform.

The final product will enable the user the ability to:

- Analyse and visualize gait analysis

- Predict the risk of neurological or musculoskeletal diseases

Our technical co-founders will mentor and work closely with the team to develop and ultimately deploy the built solution in a real-world commercial setting. Students will have the chance to work with top research scientists on a government statutory board and our internal U.S technical team.

If you're interested in working with us, kindly contact Elson Yong (elson.yong@carecam.ai) for further information.

Project(s) proposed by SingHealth

Project #1

Project Title: TEMI Night Patrol

Project Description: Use case exploration of having a night patrol using TEMI and alerting onduty staff when patient requires assistance in fall risks wards. The solution should have adequate lighting at night for effective patrol at designated spots of the ward with poorer visibility (dim areas) or allow visibility at night through web camera / TEMI for TEMI to perform night ward round without causing any disturbance to other sleeping patients (ie. No bright lights or noises)

There should be an alert or notification sent back to Nursing main counter to alert Nursing staff of patient’s larger movement (ie coming down from bed) during night and dark time. This is to ensure the patients’ safety at night time when the ward lights may be dim and patient may require assistance.

Core Deliverable: TEMI night patrol working prototype

Point of Contact: Trilbie Kwok trilbie.kwok.c.p@singhealth.com.sg

Project #2

Project title: Implementation of a Cognitive load theory (CLT) based mobile phone application to improve knowledge of junior medical staff in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit

Project description: For medical officers (MOs) and non-anaesthesia residents who rotate to Anaesthesia, there is lack of appropriate opportunity for time-based training to ensure competencies in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) subject areas in the short 6-month MOPEX (for MOs). To address this gap, we aim to develop a Cognitive load theory (CLT) based web-based or mobile phone application that will serve as a convenient and informative on-the-job aide memoire to suit the technological inclination of millennial learners. We will condense key concepts and lessons into nuggets of wisdom that our users can refer and take away easily. This app should also have in built calculators for various risk prediction scores and be a versatile platform to push guideline updates.

Learning opportunities: Students will incorporate the use of CLT in designing a mobile phone or web-based application to aid user learning in the fast-paced ICU clinical environment.

Deliverables: Design and build a cross-platform (Android and iOS/iPadOS) mobile or web based application with userfriendly interface that contains easily accessible content for easy on-the-job referencing and learning, and calculators for various risk prediction scores in the ICU.

Develop usage analytics: Students may propose IT solutions that fit the above purpose better and engage the users in learning more effectively.

Point of contact: For more information, please contact Sui An (lie.sui.an@singhealth.com.sg)

Project #3

Project Name: My Neck Companion

Project Description: Neck pain is a highly prevalent condition that may led to significant pain, disability and economic cost. At the SGH Outpatient Musculoskeletal Clinic, 20% of our patients suffer from neck pain. As part of our interventions for these patients, we frequently prescribe neck mobility exercises to encourage patients to move in the day.

At current, patients are given an exercise sheet for their prescribed exercises. However, adherence to these exercises are problematic, with literature reporting up to 70% who do not comply with their prescribed exercises. My Neck Companion hence aims to improve adherence and build self-efficacy with regards to encouraging exercise at home with the use of the app.

A basic prototype of the software is available on https://github.com/xavierchia/NeckStretch

Deliverables: We hope to continue to develop this app prototype to better motivate patients to move more often and also track how often they are doing the exercises. These include,

1) Incorporating augmented reality (AR) / gamification features into the current application

2) Software development features such as push notifications, exercise statistics, verbal instructions

3) Exercise development features such as holding a hold function to the current exercises, as well as incorporating additional shoulder exercises where applicable

4) Incorporating surveys for user satisfaction/patient reported outcome measures with the app

Point-of-contact: Gary Koh gary.koh.j.s@sgh.com.sg

Project #4

Project Title: Centralised Administrator’s Residency Database (CARD)

Project Description: SingHealth Residency is Singapore’s largest training institution for junior doctors to pursue their medical careers. Residents are key to the medical workforce and contribute extensively to daily patient care. Our residency programmes are robust and competitive in delivering quality training and building competency and capacity as a skillful clinician. At Medicine Academic Clinical Programme (ACP), we are the largest ACP within SingHealth. We train the highest number of junior and senior residents across 11 residency programmes, rotated through Singapore General Hospital, Changi General Hospital and Seng Kang General Hospital. As part of maintaining accreditation standards and training compliance, Programme Administrators play an important role in managing the administrative duties of the 11 residency programmes. Proper documentation of training records such as posting and education history are essential for audit trails. Tracking of residents’ training involvements, education and research scholarly activities and accolades also play an important role in their future academic appointments. The proposed database system will aim to harmonise the tracking practices of our 11 residency programmes, enable Programme Administrators to store, update, track and retrieve resident’s information, training records and involvements and generate desired documents (such as residency exit documentation or CV) based on matching fields and export into various file formats.

Deliverables

1. Develop a database system to store residency training records, involvements, scholarly activities and accolades.

2. The database system shall include user account management function (users vs admins).

3. Enable Programme Administrators or Residents, with authorised security levels to limit read and write functions) to batch upload or individually update information.

4. Map junior and senior residency training records seamlessly.

5. Customise suitable data visualisation formats for retrieval of individual resident’s information.

6. To be able to export into various file formats CSV, XLSX, PDF.

Point of Contact: Mr Cai Guorong cai.guorong@singhealth.com.sg, Ms Suganyah K suganyah.k@singhealth.com.sg Ms Clasandra Hum clasandra.hum.j.y@singhealth.com.sg

Project #5

Project Title: Brachy Educators: Patient Education

Project Description: Traditionally, patient briefing for brachytherapy procedure has been done verbally. We have a briefing checklist to guide us, train juniors and new colleagues before sending them out to brief patients. However, depending on various patient needs, the briefing process for each unique patient/radiation therapist can range from 10minutes to 45minutes. This timing might affect the subsequent patient’s timing and disrupt the clinical schedule for the day. The information relayed during briefing can also be overwhelming for certain patients. Radiation therapists (RTs) often found themselves repeating information that was mentioned during briefing, to patient during their procedure. Thus, we aim to find a solution that allows patient to better understand the briefing information (e.g. video-aid, visual guide etc.) simultaneously allowing RTs to dedicate the briefing time to do more clinical work and attend to more patients promptly.

Deliverables: Video aid/ Visual Guide / VR

POC: Sofia Bte Sadimin (NCCS) <sofia.sadimin@nccs.com.sg>

Project(s) proposed by Aunty SG

Title: Project Aunty SG

Brief description: Aunty is a mobile app that connects parents to trusted and reliable babysitters. Designed for busy parents, bookings can be made for the same day or up to 3 months in advance. Parents are able to search, interview sitters and pay all through the app!

Launched only in October 2021, Aunty continues to grow with a current pool of a thousand users and a network of sitters spread island-wide. Since then, Aunty has also been featured in multiple media outlets such as ExpatLiving and AsianParents.

Deliverables (Scope and details to be discussed pre/during proposal stage):

1. Analyse current User Journey and redesign UI/UX to improve conversion rate and dispute management

2. Design and build a referral feature where parents can refer sitters they have engaged before to friends

3. Extend the booking capabilities to allow longer term bookings and a more fluid transaction

4. Design and enhance promo code system

Tech Stack: React Native, PHP + Laravel, AWS

Contact Marcus Ong (hello@aunty.sg), Aunty SG Pte Ltd

Project(s) proposed by YouClass Learning Pte Ltd

Title: Online Learning System Development

YouClass Learning Center is a comprehensive education brand that provides high-quality courses for students aged 5-18.

Description and objective: Globally, over 1.2 billion children are out of the classroom due to the pandemic. As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning. In response to significant demand, YouClass wants to create an online learning system that offers a better experience when our students learn online.

Expected outcome: User-friendly interface for easy access of class schedules, tracking of students’ learning progress which include looking into learning needs and students’ expectations. SMU students may also come up with a system to allow YouClass students to purchase learning packages and materials online. Additionally, students may also take mode test and create exam question banks from the system.

For further information, please contact Haiyao Chen at haiyao.chen@youclass.org

Project(s) proposed by Good Bees Pte Ltd

Project #1

Title: Deliver for good

Background: goodbees serves as a novel platform to facilitate organization to get the food sponsored for their beneficiaries.

We are the pioneer of food sponsorship marketplace in Singapore. We bridge organizations (VWOs), Beneficiaries, Sponsors & F&B Merchants in one place. With our mobile application, we’ll get your food shared or sold on demand—NO delay, NO wastage, NO hassle. It’s as simple as that. (www.goodbees.sg )

To build dynamic Delivery capability for the existing solution, For instance if the partnering merchants would want to manage their delivery, Application to support the dynamic delivery charge based on the distance , Also Partial Fulfilment - sponsoring partner able to choose the quantity of the meals they wish to sponsor, (e.g if the org need 50 chicken rice and partner able to sponsor only 20 meals then the partner to explicitly sponsor the quantity they want to, this will give partners the flexibility to sponsor based on their capacity

1. UI/UX refinement & fine tune to make the app more user friendly.

2. Few other significant feature which will add to elevation of user base.

For further information, please contact Ansari at contact@goodbeesconsulting.com

Project(s) proposed by Stemly

Project #1

Project Name: Autonomous Cash Flow Management for businesses

Problem: Estimated more than 100,000 business in Singapore alone, and close to 110 million business globally suffer from the inability to predict cash flow in a timely manner.

Stemly has access to financial data coming from supply chain operations in the context of demand planning, inventory optimisation, spare parts forecasting, and similar. The objectives of the project are to identify what are the most accurate and most generic data science approaches to predict the likelihood of an invoice to be paid on time and in full. The student should leverage the groundwork done by Stemly and augment it with novel approaches in the area of Survival Analysis, Deep Learning, probabilistic networks.

Opportunity: Students will have the opportunity to work in a data science product context, collaborate with ML engineers and data scientists to identify the right methodology, framework, and algorithms. The expected deliverables are:

1. A detailed literature research of the current state of the art and what are the novel approach published

2. An experiment design document and the experiment report document to describe the scope and the results of the experiments.

3. A working prototype of the solution that can be used to validate the functionality and usability of the solution to customers.

Skills: student should possess the following set of skills: python in particular: pandas, numpy, scikit learn, mathplotlib, seaborn, streamlit / dash. Or any other library that might be relevant to address the problem. Familiarity with collaboration tools such as Jira/ Confluence a nice to have.

Equipment & Tools: students will be required to use their personal laptop.

For more information, please contact Kendrick Loh at kendrick.loh@stemly.ai

Project #2

Project Name: Enhanced Replenishment Planning

Problem: Replenishment Planning is cited as the central problem in the area of supply chain management. It involves two important determinants: The lot sizing decision or the determination of the quantities to order, and the determination of replenishment dates (or schedule).

Stemly has access to direct customer data coming from supply chain operations in the context of demand planning, inventory optimisation, spare parts forecasting, and similar. The objectives of the project are to identify what machine learning based approaches for inventory optimisation. The student should leverage the groundwork done by Stemly and augment it with novel approaches in the area of Reinforcement Learning, Deep Learning, Probabilistic networks.

Opportunity: Students will have the opportunity to work in a data and data science product context, collaborate with ML engineers and data scientists to identify the right methodology, framework and algorithms. The expected deliverables are:

1. A detailed literature research of the current state of the art and what are the novel approach published

2. An experiment design document and the experiment report document to describe the scope and the results of the experiments.

3. Study comparison between proposed new solution versus old solution, highlighting the benefits and expected outcomes

4. A working prototype of the upgraded solution that can be used to validate the functionality and usability of the solution to customers.

Skills: student should possess the following set of skills: python in particular: pandas, numpy, scikit learn, mathplotlib, seaborn, streamlit / dash. Or any other library that might be relevant to address the problem. Familiarity with collaboration tools such as Jira/ Confluence a nice to have.

Equipment & Tools: students will be required to use their personal laptop.

For more information, please contact Kendrick Loh at kendrick.loh@stemly.ai

Project(s) proposed by Aboitiz Data Innovation

Project #1

Satellite image analytics for real estate value prediction in the Philippine context

Description and objective: The Philippines is currently one of Asia’s fastest growing economies with an aggressive and competitive real estate industry. Despite the pandemic, nationwide residential property prices grew by 27% in Q2 2020 (highest growth rate since Q1 2016). The 20-30-year-old market segment (millennials) has doubled during the pandemic. Health, safety and security are the priorities of property seekers. This project shall explore the use of satellite image analytics for real estate value prediction regarding health, safety or security in the Philippine context. Analytics of one feature are demonstrated in a prototype and results presented.

Deliverables:

1. Literature overview of satellite analytics that are valuable for the real estate industry regarding health, safety and security in the Philippine context

2. Overview of satellite image datasets for real estate use cases

3. Proposed AI features that will greatly support the property seekers and real estate brokers

4. Selection and implementation of one AI feature with publicly available data of the Philippines, performance evaluation conducted (performance evaluation can be done with data from another country but application of the designed model shall include the Philippines)

5. Web application and/or mobile app that demonstrates one selected high value feature

Project #2

Satellite image analytics for farming related decisions in the Philippine context

Description and objective: The Philippines is currently one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. The Philippine agriculture and fisheries sector accounts for approximately 25% of the country’s work force and is one of the few trades available for many Filipinos living in remote regions. The objective of this project is to give an overview of the use of satellite image analytics to enhance farming related decisions. Analytics of one feature are demonstrated in a prototype and results presented.

Deliverables:

1. Challenges of farmers in the Philippines who are potentially early adopters of new technologies that can improve their business value

2. Literature overview of satellite analytics that are valuable for the Philippine context

3. Overview of satellite image datasets

4. Proposed AI features that will greatly support farmers in rural areas

5. Selection and implementation of one AI feature with publicly available data of the Philippines, performance evaluation conducted

6. Web application and/or mobile app that demonstrates one selected high value feature

Project #3

Satellite image analytics for fishing related decisions in the Philippine context

Description and objective: The Philippines is currently one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. The Philippine agriculture and fisheries sector accounts for approximately 25% of the country’s work force and is one of the few trades available for many Filipinos living in remote regions. The objective of this project is to give an overview of the use of satellite image analytics to enhance fishing related decisions. Analytics of one feature are demonstrated in a prototype and results presented.

Deliverables:

1. Challenges of fisheries/fishermen in the Philippines who are potentially early adopters of new technologies that can improve their business value

2. Literature overview of satellite analytics that are valuable for the Philippine context

3. Overview of satellite image datasets

4. Proposed AI features that will greatly support fisheries in rural areas

5. Selection and implementation of one AI feature with publicly available data of the Philippines, performance evaluation conducted

6. Web application and/or mobile app that demonstrates one selected high value feature

Project #4

Estimation and visualization of insights combining health behavior (Apple HealthKit, Google Fit) and financial behavior data

Description and objective: Read Apple and Google Fit Health data to give health statistics next to financial insights (e.g. 10000 steps walked on a shopping day when spending XXX PHP).

Deliverables:

1. Literature overview of approaches combining health and financial behavior analytics and corresponding visualizations

2. Overview of datasets with financial (e.g. banking) and health (outcome) data, e.g. step counts, energy expenditure, heart rate, personal health records (PHR)

3. Proposed features that provide insights into a person’s health and financial development/behavior/interaction that can be computed with Apple HealthKit or Google Fit data and typical banking data

4. Results and performance evaluation shown with a publicly available dataset

5. Prototype (e.g. mobile app) reading in Apple HealthKit and Google Fit data, computing and visualizing powerful insights in the financial-health space by combining health and financial data

Project #5

Skin AI for medical cost and insurance propositions

Description and objective: There have been multiple AI advances for skin analytics (e.g. “Dermatology assist tool” by Google) in the past decade. The objective of this project is to identify a business model using a successful skin AI feature that will benefit the patient, insurance, clinician and potentially a bank. The proposed business model shall differentiates itself from existing business models and is ideally valuable for bank customers.

Deliverables:

1. Literature overview of AI technology landscape for skin condition analytics

2. Literature overview of existing business models addressing skin analytics and involving insurance partners, bank partners and clinicians

3. Current customer journey with pain points

4. Proposal of business model highlighting the benefits for each party, reason to believe, differentiator to existing business models and money flow

5. Future customer journey

6. App prototype demonstrating the entire customer journey including

a. one AI feature for skin analytics

b. benefit for customer / patient

c. benefit for clinician

d. benefit for insurance

For more information on any of the above projects, please contact Adrienne Heinrich <adrienne.heinrich@aboitiz.com>.

Project(s) proposed by Straits Estate

Project #1

Video / photo editing app for property sector

Project Description: A video editing App designed for property sector. After pandemic, the property related media has been getting more and more popular in the traditional or short video platform. Consumers' attention has been shifted to these platforms.

Objective: The project is to build a working prototype of a mobile app that has the functions of video / photo editing. This app can guide Real Estate agent, interior designer, homeowner, and landlord to use the pre-set templates or shoot angle or motions to produce an appealing property video with creative art effects which is specifically designed for property or property related purpose.

Expected outcome: The mobile app should be at a working prototype stage which can be further processed. Further career opportunities are available for the project team members who want to continue work on the project.

For more information, please contact Li at hello@straitsestate.com

Project(s) proposed by Singapore Exchange Limited

AIOps using Internal Bot Platform

Description

To support the growth of Bots in SGX Intelligent IT Operations Journey, we have conceptualized an “Internal Bot Engine Platform” that will be implemented with a set of common re-usable AWS micro services for the Bot interaction. Developers who on-board Bots onto the platform only need to focus on the Bot logic. On-boarded Bots can also interact between themselves. For example, the health check results returned by a Bot can be passed over to another Bot that interacts with the incident ticketing system to open/close an incident ticket.

For the project, we are looking at expanding the “Internal Bot Platform” to implement “Builder Bot” (aka BBot) to manage the lifecycle of all bots built and deployed in SGX. Developers will build the bot, and they are known as “Citizen Builders”. The BBot will perform the following functionalities (but NOT limited to):

(i) Create and Enrolls Webex Bot into SGX Bot Inventory

(ii) Enforce access key expiry and notify bot owners accordingly

(iii) Maintain SGX Bot Service Directory and Bot Metadata

(iv) Provides code templates, help and lifecycle guidance for Citizen Builders

(v) Manage the upload and versioning of “Bot Handlers” (e.g. creating the python based biz logics into lambda functions)

(vi) Provide Bot operational reporting, e.g. usage, cost metrics etc.

(vii) Manage the QA and production dependency, change approval

(viii) Automate the Bot Release Readiness process

(ix) Handles upload and execution of automated test scripts (in the form of input event and expected output event)

The “Internal Bot Platform” will also have an automated self-check for on-boarded Bots to facilitate production level 2 support, ticket management and escalation.

Learning Opportunities

In the project, the students will learn about AWS technology, chatbot technology, AI and automation. Access to AWS online learning platform will also be provided upon request.

Technical Requirements

The students should have basic AWS knowledge (preferred) and proficient in Python, Java or Node.js. They will provision their own AWS account for development. For integration and testing, the students will be provided the SGX AWS development account.

Contact Helen Lim (helen.lim@sgx.com), Singapore Exchange Limited.

Project(s) proposed by Usertip

Project 1 - Product Manager Analytics

Brief Description: Companies need analytics on the usage of software in order to streamline software development and customer experience on their systems. Our company would like to prototype an analytics tracking and related web application that enables users to view detailed analytics of website usage and generate related reports. Analytics will extend beyond the range of information such as that available on existing solutions like Google Analytics and is designed to support product managers in change management for software.

Deliverables: Develop tracking tools that will enable tracking of usage data on websites. Develop a web application for reviewing data tracked via a dashboard and for report generation.

For further info, please contact Marc Chia @marc@usertip.com.

Project 2 - Automated Learning Material Generator and Web Browser Editor

Brief Description: Our company allows users to create in-application guidance for web applications. Such guidance takes place on a step-by-step basis. Our customers would like the ability to convert this in-app guidance into off-site training materials (e.g. pdf, videos, faqs etc.) so that there is a single source of truth for learning material across all information sources.

Deliverables: A web application that converts walkthroughs on our existing system into off-site training materials that can be accessed by users. These may include a web browser-based editor for training materials.

For further info, please contact Marc Chia @marc@usertip.com.

Project 3 - No-Code In-Application Guidance Tool For Mobile Applications

Brief Description: We already have a no-code platform enabling the building of in-application guidance for other web applications. We are interested in developing similar capabilities for the mobile ecosystem.

Deliverables: Perform research into how to implement such a solution for the mobile environment. Through rapid prototyping create an application and any related SDKs which would enable such a solution to function for applications in the mobile environment.

For further info, please contact Marc Chia @marc@usertip.com.

Project(s) proposed by Standard Chartered

1. Onsite personalization to maximize the digital engagement

The Digital use case is divided into two parts:

1) Journey evaluation : Study how users traverse the StanC website, understand the broken journeys, their option selection preferences, etc - by different segments, countries and products

a. Prepare an analysis which talks about how different users navigate on our website (major routes they take to reach their goals), what are the options they show more interest in, how many have journey breakages and why, etc

b. Propose recommendations to improve/smoothen the site navigation and prevent drop offs

c. How the above two vary by different user segments, their location, etc

2) Personalization : Predict the likelihood of a product transaction (eg cash payment, trade transaction, etc) at each step/page of the journey from the time a user lands on the website and recommend the next best click/clicks at that step (which can be shown as a pop up or a CTA) to optimize the conversions. - This would require participants to use the clustering techniques for customer segmentation and Machine Learning / Statistical modelling for predictive analysis

Data that will be provided : Google Analytics data from StanC’s Digital platforms (Web, Mobile, etc)

For further information, please contact Rahul Gupta (Rahul.gupta5@sc.com).

Project(s) proposed by Learn 2 Play Music Academy

1. Music Learning App.

Project Description: As technology advances, it also changes the way students learn. In the midst of a covid-19 pandemic, Learn 2 Play Music Academy is exploring effective online music learning tools to better engage our students.

Core Deliverables: A cross-platform app Android and iOS/iPadOS Platforms. Students may also propose IT solutions that will engage the music students in learning more effectively.

For further information, please contact Angeline @ learn2playmusicsg@gmail.com

Project(s) proposed by Band Directors’ Association Singapore

1. Reimaging music education

Brief Description - Music educators to rethink how to deliver virtual learning experiences with activities that continue to make the music lessons engaging despite the technical nature and motivate the students in the absence of face-to-face experience due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective – Achieve an effective and fun learning virtual experience for students and empower educators with tools in content creation to ease their preparation process.

Expected outcome – A digital transformation strategy that gamifies the entire learning process and allows educators to track the learning progress of students which include looking into learning needs and students’ expectations, and integrate local and overseas best practices. Students may also come up with a system to allow educators to develop their own games and learning materials vis-à-vis the students’ levels and needs. For more information, please contact ADRIAN CHIANG <president@bdas.org.sg>

Project(s) proposed by UBS AG

1. Secure coding gamification

In a world of where very public and very devastating hacks and data breaches are rapidly on the rise, increased software developer awareness of secure coding best practices is crucial to any business' success. Students will create a web game for development teams. Development teams will be able to point the game at a code repository of interest. The game will ingest that code and run best of breed open source security static code analysis tools against the repository. From there, a custom game instance will be created that presents development team with features such as: coding challenges, recorded responses, ratings, top scores, and overall analytics on the security of the repository.

For further information on any of the above projects, please contact Kumar, Ajith A <ajith-a.kumar@ubs.com>.

Network/Linked Data Visualization

As the datasets we work with become larger and more interconnections are represented, we need better ways to visualize our data for decision making. The project we would like to propose is to work specifically on the visualization of network/liked datasets. Many options have been proposed in research and many products exist. We would first explore what is out there from academia and commercially, then narrow down to a few models for your group to build using open source tools as a basis. The goal would be to produce reusable 2D/3D visualization components that can be readily and easily integrated into modern web-based (HTML5, SVG, or Canvas, etc.) applications.

For further information on any of the above projects, please contact Kumar, Ajith A <ajith-a.kumar@ubs.com>.

Modern web application and Native Mobile application for Portfolio viewing of a banking customer

There are already a quite a lot of Banking asset viewing and portfolio viewing apps in the market currently. Having a great user experience for such asps are key for success of any business. User experience is garnered from Customer experience strategy, research and design. Understanding user behavior and human computer interaction techniques are key in designing and implementing next gen user experience application is key.

In this project you will produce native ios/android mobile application and web applciation using latest technology which inculcates great customer experience design , user experience design and wireframes. There are already great research materials on this subject, so need a both balanced academic view and already existing app view to come out with a great application to do portfolio viewing of a Banking clients assets. The backend may have mock data to begin with so not really expecting the app to work end to end. Key success criteria are to have a great visual and customer experience for these apps. For further information on any of the above projects, please contact Kumar, Ajith A <ajith-a.kumar@ubs.com>.

Singapore/APAC Cyber Threat Intelligence Feed

Today many organizations utilize STIX/TAXII cyber intelligence feeds to quickly ingest and increase situational awareness of the latest cyber threats. The project we would like to propose is one to create a specialized and open source feed to produce threat intelligence relevant to industry in Singapore and the APAC region. You would work with our Cyber Security subject matter experts for guidance in what cyber concerns are most relevant today and how best to capture and represent them in a way consumable by business. The goal would be to produce a feed from data mining public sources that can easily integrated into threat intelligence platforms.

For further information on any of the above projects, please contact Kumar, Ajith A <ajith-a.kumar@ubs.com>.

Project(s) proposed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA)

The following projects are particularly well-suited to the IS485 (Industry Research) option.

Project #1: Walkability in Singapore

• Project Description/Goals: In order to support Singapore's car-lite vision and enhance our city's liveability, URA is exploring the use of technology and data to better inform accessibility on the ground and identifying potential gaps to make data-informed planning.
• Learning Opportunities: Spatial analytics such as network analysis
• Deliverables: Explore / Develop methodology
  • Assess accessibility and walkability of areas
  • Identify potential accessibility gaps such as barrier-free access for people with disabilities
• Point of contact: Wang Songyu (wang_songyu@ura.gov.sg); Muhammad Syafi'e Bin Sa'at (Muhammad_Syafie_SAAT@ura.gov.sg)

Project #2: Amenities / Land use Planning in Singapore

• Project Description/Goals: With limited land in Singapore, URA is exploring new evidence-based methods and tools to create robust plans that offer greater optionality in face of future challenges to support planning.
• Learning Opportunities:
  • Optimization modelling
  • Spatial analytics
• Deliverables: Explore / Develop various optimization techniques
• Point of contact: Wang Songyu (wang_songyu@ura.gov.sg); Teo Yang Rui (teo_yang_rui@ura.gov.sg)

Projects proposed by GIC Private Limited

Brief Description of the Organisation: Established in 1981 to manage Singapore's foreign reserves, we strive to achieve good long-term real returns on assets under our management to preserve and enhance the value of Singapore's reserves. We have investments in over 40 countries and are headquartered in Singapore, with 10 offices in key financial cities worldwide.

Project #1: Gnosis - Using natural language to perform data analysis

Introduction and brief description of the current situation Being a data-driven organisation, there are huge volume, velocity and variety of data consumed on daily basis if not in real-time. To support data needs, the organisation has to build and maintain significant mid-tier data infrastructure such as data models and reporting tools.

Despite the resources deployed to service today’s need, there is an also consideration for future-needs as the organisation grows. Traditional method of managing mid-tier data infrastructure may not be scalable and may slow business progress. There is a need to bring data closer to the people who needs it in a more agile manner.

With "Google" style of performing data query and to be able to extract across various data databases, individuals will be able to perform deep-dive analysis without the need to build dashboards or datamodels. This reduces waiting dependency of other technology teams, and also reduces cost effort in maintaining reporting capabilities. E.g, Typing “What is the 5 year average return of Apple stock?” will return “300%”.

Objective of the project A working prototype using MS Teams chatbot function against some of the commonly used databases within the organisation. The working prototype should be able to translate simple natural language into various SQL statement for querying against these databases, and to be able to return an answer, a chart or a table. Accuracy of results will be measured for the working prototype. However, it is also expected the model shall self-learn based on the results returned is what the user is requesting for. Hence, over a period of time, the model will not only be more accurate, and also be able to recommend what are the next set of questions that are commonly queried.

Contact: Chua En Hao, Senior Vice President chuaenhao@gic.com.sg

Project(s) proposed by EnterpriseSG

Project #1: Payment methods for heartland enterprises Background

Heartland Enterprises (HEs) are business entities operating under HDB flats in towns and neighbourhood centres across Singapore. In alignment with the national drive to digitalize payments to ensure a seamless and coherent payment experience for consumer, EnterpriseSG has been working with different stakeholders and payment providers to accelerate and support the adoption of e-payment solutions by HEs. As a non-partisan enabler, EnterpriseSG does not prescribe a specific solution but encourages enterprises to adopt at least one e-payment solution. Since there are a number of dominant players in the payments industry with sizeable consumer bases, HEs are also motivated to adopt more than 1 solution to provide their consumers with the privilege of choice As of May 2022, more than 80% of HEs have adopted at least one e-payment solution with 31% adopting more than one solution.

While moving from pen and paper to digital payment method had alleviate some of their manual reconciliation process, providing more than one solution presented another issue. As the programme and push for e-payment solution matures, HEs face the issue of having to reconcile daily statements received from multiple payment solutions and systems. Through engagements with stakeholders such as IMDA, feedback directly from HEs gathered from Digital Ambassadors and Business Advisors, or direct company engagements, we have gathered that some HEs that have adopted multiple e-payment solutions do struggle with the reconciliation process.

Existing Solutions

There are existing e-payment solutions that aggregate a set of e-payment partner. Therefore, any transactions paid through the system will be recorded in 1 consolidated statement at the end of the day. For example, SGQR that is currently managed by NETS for Hawker’s Go Digital, or Simply NETS which is a terminal solution integrating a few payment options, and finally POS solutions which integrates payments as part of its function. However, merchants will be restricted to the set of payment options that are available on their systems.

If a merchant adopts solutions that are not part of the option available, they could request for POS vendors to integrate the e-payment solutions which is charged per integration at about $300. This allows merchants to accept payment through their existing POS and terminal. Stripe or Hitpay also provides such integration and does not charge for set-up but adds a premium to the MDR at 3% for GrabPay integration.

However, integration of payments in one POS only simplifies the reconciliation at the shop level. Based on different business models, solution providers might not partner POS solutions but would still charge merchants directly. For instance, a payment provider might charge a POS solution provider for the API integration but still charge the MDR directly to the merchants rather than only charging the POS solution provider which allows all payments to be integrated and be reconciled by the POS solution provider. Therefore, merchants will still receive more than 1 invoice at the end of the month and this requires more time for accountants to reconcile any errors. A model where merchants only interface with 1 aggregator is much like NETS’s role as the acquirer for Hawker’s Go Digital where all payments go through NETS rather than individual e-payment providers. While merchants with large enough operations and transactions could justify an expenditure on an integrated ERP: 1. Merchants onboard POS solutions and subsequently request for integration might still not be able to fully automate and centralize their backend reconciliation. 2. Merchants that are smaller with only 1-2 outlets but accepting multiple e-payment solutions will still need to have to deal with multiple invoices during backend reconciliation.

Productivity improvements

Currently, enterprises have to conduct end of day settlements at the shop level and backend reconciliation by the accountant or finance department. At the shop level, sales executives will usually generate the day’s sales report from their POS and match the total figure with amounts from the different terminals and the cash remaining in the POS. If there are any discrepancies, shop managers will usually flag these errors to their finance departments. Outlet closing usually takes about 15 mins every day for each outlet.

Larger merchants with a finance department will conduct daily reconciliation by comparing POS sales reports and their bank statements or e-payment statements received from their vendors. The finance department will ensure that the correct amount is being paid by each payment solution provider and that this tallies with the sales report as well. Finance departments will usually have an excel sheet with formulas to convert the gross sales amounts into nett amounts after the deduction of MDRs. Should there be any discrepancies, finance department will download the respective e-payment statement (e.g. NETS MConnect, Credit card statements upon request, or DBS Max for PayNow payments) and try to identify this amount line-by-line. An example of a discrepancies as listed below: 1. When there are surpluses in cash, this could mean that payments were made in cash but not logged into the POS as cash. Payment might have been wrongly tagged as an e-payment. 2. When there is a deficit in cash, a possible scenario could be a wrong entry of amount e.g. receiving $23 but entered as $33. 3. E-payments could also be wrongly tagged which leads to discrepancies because of differences in MDR charges.

Settlement is completed as long as the nett amount tallies with bank statement after deducting charges. If there are no issues, this process would usually take about 30mins daily. Discrepancies usually happens when there is cash that is unaccounted for in the cash register. This usually happens because the payment mode is not linked to the POS and cashiers have to key the amount and payment mode manually. When there are discrepancies, backend settlement can be extended to 1-2 hours.

For a shop that has 4 outlets and 5 e-payment solutions, this would mean 20 lines of payments in the company’s financial statements.

Scope of project

An automation of this settlement process could involve a. Interviews with merchants to understand the operational process of backend settlement. b. Automation of nett sales amount calculations and comparisons with respective payments within bank statement or relevant e-payment statements. c. Automation of discrepancy flagging and identification of erroneous line payment d. Automation of reconciliation e.g. prediction of correct entry from erroneous line payment such that total amounts tally e. Basic analytics of the sales report e.g. trend of sales, most popular and least popular SKU,

Considerations and technical details

1. Solutions should be scalable as much as possible and be easily adaptable to different merchants. 2. Merchants mention that statements are usually received in excel format. 3. A minor consideration mentioned by merchants is that sometimes, discrepancies happen because of rounding issues e.g. difference of a few cents.

Contact: Alvin Soh, Linus Ang (alvin_soh@enterprisesg.gov.sg; Linus_ang@enterprisesg.gov.sg)