Good morning! A very warm welcome to IBF’s Jobs and Skills Virtual Career Fair for the Financial Sector, which is held in conjunction with the Singapore Fintech Festival.

I am delighted that you can join us today as you explore the many jobs and skills training opportunities.

Continuous learning

Many of you are familiar with the term “continuously learning, un-learning and re-learning”. Our skills, and thus our careers, can be adversely impacted if we don’t keep up with the ever-changing landscape. What’s on the horizon that we would need to keep track of?

Many of you are now using Generative AI in one way or another. It is not just for work. Some of us use it to plan our holiday itinerary, organize events and draft letters. 

Chat GPT now has close to 180 million users and about 1.5 billion visits to its website per month – all in less than a year.

What do all these mean to us? 

Impact of Generative AI on tech jobs

As this is the Singapore Fintech Festival, allow me to focus on those working in the technology sector.

Should tech professionals be concerned about the impact of Gen AI on their jobs?

Historically, major technological waves, such as the advent of PCs and the internet, had led to net job creation. According to a 2017 study conducted by McKinsey Global Institute, it was estimated that the growth of personal computers had enabled the net creation of 15.8 million jobs since 1970. Another study by the same Institute reported that the internet has created 2.4 jobs for every job it has destroyed.

The lesson here is thus not jobs destroyed, but job transformation. While some job roles may be displaced, more sophisticated job roles will be created. To safeguard your careers, you will need to be able to pivot to these new roles effectively.

A successful tech career in this changing landscape

How should we respond to the rise of generative AI?  Allow me to share a few pointers.

Firstly, we must make AI our “best friends” who can work alongside us to attain exceptional performance previously not possible. AI democratization has put the power of AI into the hands of users without specialized AI or even technical knowledge. It is not just another technology fad but will shape how we work and live, so it cannot be ignored.

Secondly, develop complementary skillsets in AI. Your current job role could be in software engineering, data analytics, blockchain. Augment these with AI related skills like machine learning, natural language processing, or other choices of specialization.

Thirdly, be a dual-domain expert. While it is important to acquire deep IT skills, it is highly advantageous to have the business domain knowledge. This will enhance your ability to apply the technology to transform the business or solve problems. Often, there is a disconnect between tech professionals and business professionals as they speak different “languages”.

Lastly, it is important to continue honing your soft skills. Financial Institutions have underscored the importance of these soft skills.  You may be familiar with new project management methodologies like SCRUM or AGILE. A key feature of these methodologies is the need to engage ALL stakeholders to communicate your ideas, seek feedback, and solicit buy-ins.

These few points can be depicted using the capital letter “I”. The horizontal stroke at the base represents your “soft skills”. The vertical stroke your deep technology specialization. The top horizontal stroke your business domain knowledge where technology is being deployed.

Closing

In closing, let me cite from Harvard Business Review article. It said “Human beings have an astonishing ability to learn, but our motivation to do so tends to decrease with age. Unsurprisingly, there is now big demand for employees who can demonstrate high levels of “learnability,” the desire and ability to quickly grow and adapt one’s skill set to remain employable throughout their working life. This demand has been turbocharged by the recent technological revolution.”