This year’s SIT Community Challenge saw the university collaborate with James Dyson Foundation and students from the Punggol community to enhance sustainable development efforts. 

This year’s SIT Community Challenge Finals was held at the Punggol Regional Library on 4 November. (Photo: SIT) 

Inaugurated in 2019, the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) Community Challenge represents SIT’s efforts to partner with the community to solve problems using science, technology and engineering skills. The 2023 challenge saw SIT collaborating with James Dyson Foundation (JDF) and four secondary schools in Punggol to ideate creative solutions centred around the theme of sustainability. 

The challenge commenced in May 2023, with students from Edgefield Secondary School, Greendale Secondary School, Punggol Secondary School and Yusof Ishak Secondary School forming teams, developing ideas and prototyping solutions to improve sustainability in everyday activities. 

Together with engineers from JDF, SIT professors guided the student participants in applying design thinking principles to their projects. This was conducted through several face-to-face sessions, including an intensive full-day boot camp held at SAFRA Punggol on 26 August 2023. 

Inspiring Secondary School Students 

SIT students also participated in the challenge as student mentors. One such mentor was Year 3 Pharmaceutical Engineering student Ng Jin Ru, who worked with students from Greendale Secondary School to prepare their projects for presentation. 

This was her second time volunteering under SIT’s Young Engineers’ Space Programme (YES!Programme), which allows SIT students to hone their mentorship skills by inspiring secondary school students to learn more about Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). 

Ng Jin Ru (third from right) was a timekeeper at the finals of the SIT Community Challenge. (Photo: SIT) 

Sharing about why she returned to help in SIT Community Challenge 2023, Jin Ru says that she found the experience of sharing her knowledge with others very meaningful. 

“Besides being able to pass on my STEM knowledge, I also really enjoyed helping them with their soft skills to make their presentations more appealing to the judges. They already had good ideas, but needed additional guidance to showcase them.” 

Some innovative ideas from Greendale Secondary School included an app called ‘Cantino’ -- for school canteen operators to reduce waste by selling discounted leftovers -- and another project that proposed to recycle wastewater from car washes. 

Project posters created by student participants from Greendale Secondary School. (Photo: SIT) 

“The group with the car wash project left a deep impression on me because, by the time I met them, they already had all the answers regarding technical execution and understanding of their target audience. In the end, my guidance to them was more reflective in nature, such as how they could maximise the five minutes they were given to focus on the pros of their project, as well as how their presentation could be tweaked to better appeal to the judges,” said Jin Ru. 

Learning Through Mentoring 

Through mentoring secondary school students in the SIT Community Challenge, Jin Ru felt that she had gained a deeper appreciation for the training she had undergone in SIT.  

She shares that even as she guided her mentees with questions on the practicality of their choices, she was also reminded of what she had learnt from her educational journey at SIT.  

“I remember a social innovation project where I worked with my peers to develop an app that could make healthcare facilities more accessible to the elderly. There were many similarities to this challenge. We, too, had to consider the practical aspects of manufacturing, such as the cost of materials and suitability of the manufacturing process, and present our ideas to members of the healthcare industry,” said Jin Ru. 

“I was also able to appreciate better the experience of teaming up with students from other clusters during our design thinking module in SIT. That exercise helped us recognise that there are many different viewpoints to every challenge we face. For example, while I may focus on the engineering angle, there is also a business perspective to the problem. This was one of the learnings that I was glad to share with the students.” 

The Grand Finale 

Professor Yaacob Ibrahim, Director, Community Leadership and Social Innovation Centre, was one of the judges at the finals of the SIT Community Challenge. (Photo: SIT) 

After months of hard work and continuous refining of their sustainability projects, student participants finally got to showcase their prototypes at Punggol Regional Library on 4 November 2023. 

Sited at booths within the library, students passionately explained to judges and visitors from the public how their prototypes could be used to improve their chosen sustainability challenge statement. 

After careful evaluation by the judges, consisting of staff from JDF and SIT, nine teams were selected as winners and awarded prizes for their time and efforts. 

Jin Ru, who attended the event as a timekeeper, was pleased to witness three of the five groups from Greendale Secondary School she had mentored, being selected as winners. The project that focused on recycling wastewater from carwashes won the ‘Most Practical’ award, while the ‘Cantino’ app idea won the award for being ‘Most Resourceful’. 

“Overall, I was very impressed by the commitment of all the students. They went all out; some even dressed up in costumes to attract visitors to their booth. For the students who won, they really deserved it. They were very well prepared, and their presentations were like those of university-level students. I certainly did not expect that!” 

Read more on all the winning projects below.