Executive Courses
Upskilling Your Workforce through TDSI’s Executive Courses
TDSI’s Executive Courses under its Continuing Education arm look at domain-specific disciplines in systems thinking and systems engineering, as well as any in-trend/ emerging technologies, to upskill the Singapore defence workforce in line with the nation’s advocacy for lifelong learning. Embracing the digital transformation landscape today, participants will benefit from these courses, learning from subject matter experts from the defence technology community and/or academic institutions, on valuable topical knowledge and skillsets to manage real-world applications. This allows course participants to strengthen their capabilities and value-add to their employing organisations.
TDSI’s Executive Course “Military Navigation Systems Workshop” for Singapore’s Defence Technology Sector
Given the critical importance of navigation in modern military systems and operations that leverages on smart technologies, access to reliable navigation data is imperative while denying them to adversaries during military operations. The executive course on “Military Navigation Systems Workshop” aims to highlight the vulnerabilities in military navigation systems under different deployment scenarios, and share potential corresponding counter-measures. Participants from the defence technology community were appreciative of the knowledge gained from the workshop and acknowledged that the learning was highly relevant and impactful to their current field jobs/ projects. This workshop is well-recognised by the Professional Engineers Board and qualified for 6 Professional Development Units.
TDSI’s Executive Course “Systems Engineering and Analysis of Emerging Advanced Technologies for Defence Applications”
It is important for the Singapore defence forces to be at the frontier and be knowledgeable about emerging technologies for defence applications. The executive course on “Systems Engineering and Analysis of Emerging Advanced Technologies for Defence Applications” aims to present concepts and methods for engineering and analysing emerging advanced technologies, that include artificial intelligence and directed energy weapons, for defence applications. Course participants from the defence technology community have learnt and gained insights from the course that introduced concepts in complexity theory, strategic thinking, technology assessment, systems engineering and systems analysis. Course participants were appreciative that the learning gained have value-added to their current work with their primary affiliated organisations in the defence eco-system.
TDSI’s Executive Course “Generative Artificial Intelligence”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have been widely adopted in operations and work processes/ systems at the national level and in various industries. Generative AI is the latest cutting-edge technology that has been launched to extreme popularity, with progressive adoption by enterprises and industries because of its capabilities that can boost productivity and value-add decision-making, alongside many other deployment opportunities. Recognising the increasing importance of Generative AI for the defence sector, TDSI organised the executive course on this in-trend technology for the Singapore defence technology community to equip them with the fundamental knowledge of key concepts and applications of Generative AI, included algorithms such as generative adversarial networks (GANs) and variational autoencoders (VAEs). Course participants learnt how Generative AI could enhance military operations, from synthetic training data generation to scenario planning and decision support systems. This course is well-recognised by the Professional Engineers Board and qualified for 12 Professional Development Units.
Precision and Counter-Precision in Modern Warfare – Old Game, New Tricks?
Overview
In modern warfare, the interplay between precision and counter-precision has often resulted in unexpected and unintended outcomes. The ongoing war in Ukraine offers us an opportunity to look at how such an intriguing dynamic is being played out in a modern battlespace.
Since the 70s, precision weapons have demonstrated their prowess and precision in conflicts such as the Vietnam War, Six-Day War. Desert Storm and the ongoing Ukraine War. What has enabled such precision? Much can be attributed to the smart exploitation of the electro-magnetic spectrum and the exponential growth in microelectronics and computational power in line with Moore’s Law. These enablers could be in the form of embodied sensors such as radars, lasers and GPS receivers and/or external infrastructure such as GPS satellites and communication networks. Such dependency on the electromagnetic spectrum opens up vulnerabilities for counter-precision which in turn spurs counter-counter precision measures and so on.
Smart weapons and electronic warfare have featured in conflicts for decades. How much is really new in Ukraine? Is it more old game with new tricks, or could Ukraine offer fresh insights and lessons on the struggle for asymmetric advantage between technology equals?
This special seminar, to be jointly presented by Prof Quek Tong Boon and Mr Bill Eng, both of whom had made pioneering technological contributions to Singapore’s defence in the past, offers a rare opportunity to look at the evolution of the war in Ukraine as an interplay between precision and counter-precision to discuss these questions.
Learning Outcome
Course Outline
Who Should Attend
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Speakers
Prof Quek Tong Boon
Chief Executive
National Robotics Programme
Quek Tong Boon has been involved with the development of technology capabilities for more than 4 decades for the defence, economic and other public sectors.
From 1979 till 2016, his main contributions were related to defence science and technology. He last appointment before leaving MINDEF was as Chief Defence Scientist. Prior to that he had served in positions such as MINDEF’s Deputy Secretary (Technology and Transformation) and Chief Research and Technology Officer, Chief Executive Officer of the DSO National Laboratories and Director of the Defence Materiel Organisation (forerunner of today’s Defence Science and Technology Agency). In organisations that he helmed, he played pivotal roles in transforming them. At the technology level, he developed, seeded and catalysed key capabilities for Singapore’s defence in areas such as guided weapons, unmanned systems and micro-satellites.
Since leaving defence in 2016, he has been the Chief Executive of the National Robotics Programme. The programme aims to develop differentiating robotics capabilities for Singapore and to shape a vibrant SG-based robotics ecosystem. His other public sector involvements include chairing the PUB Water Technology Advisory Panel and being a member of the Committee of Government Scientific Advisors.
Mr Bill Eng
Fintech Entrepreneur
Bill Eng graduated in Physics from Cambridge University with Honours (1982) and Masters (1986).
He pioneered and contributed to many capabilities in electronic warfare (EW) for Singapore’s defence. These included developing and demonstrating early successful efforts in GPS spoofing of drones in 2005 – more than 6 years before the first reported GPS spoofing demonstration from the University of Texas, Austin in 2012. He built GPS anti-jam smart antennas (similar to those being used in modern-day conflicts such as those used in Ukraine and the Middle East) that were flight-tested against powerful jammers as far back as 2001. He built spread spectrum radios and the first smart follower-on jammers against spread spectrum radios in 1995 and then later radio geo-location tools against them.
He also wrote his first papers on network centric warfare concept titled “Precision warfare: GPS & datalinks” in 1985 – 11 years before US Admiral William Owens officially introduced the concept in his publications (1996) as a new military doctrine later adopted by militaries around the world.
Bill gave a talk at TDSI in July 2023, sharing on ” Why Ukrainian GPS-guided munitions( rockets/bombs) are missing targets & possible quick-fixes – on GPS jamming/spoofing & their countermeasures “
Bill is also a fintech entrepreneur, winning the prestigious MAS fintech awards twice (2016, 2020) and collaborated with many renowned financial institutions on artificial intelligence solutions to capture and extract conversational intelligence from social chats and predicting market turning points.
Details
- 02 Aug 2024, 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- 3 hours
- NUS Block EA, Engineering Auditorium
Status
This event is now closed.