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SPOTLIGHT
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THE IT SOCIETY / Issue 01/2022
Can Tech Truly Make Extraordinary Happen? NG KUO PIN Member, SCS Chief Executive Officer, NCS Age: 52 Earliest Tech Experience: Developed an AI speech recognition software that met the accuracy rate of 91% in 1993-94 Currently Reading: The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom Last Netflixed: The Squid Game or any other recommendations by his Gen Z children An App You Can’t Live Without: WhatsApp A Gadget You Can’t Live Without: My extra large 12.9 inch iPad Pro Favourite Way to Relax: Running distances of 10km to 12km on average and oil painting (but only when inspiration strikes)
Each year, over 2,800 infocomm and tech fresh graduates enter the workforce. Unsurprisingly, many are drawn to the tech industry by attractive pay packages, great career prospects and potential to impact the world. But, as The IT Society learns from speaking to the Chief Executive Officer of NCS – Ng Kuo Pin, joining a tech company with a clear purpose and strong beliefs may well be the most important key to unlocking personal growth and a better world. Q: Question, KP: Kuo Pin Q: From the outside, people just see tech as growing at an incredible pace. What is the view like from the inside? KP: Having been in the industry for close to 30 years now, I see four distinctive periods in the evolution of tech. The first would be the mainframe period where technology was largely exclusively used by big enterprises. I joined the industry when this phase transited to the clientserver phase. In the client-server phase, the price of computers were significantly lower than mainframes and their adoption was therefore more pervasive than mainframes. But applications were rudimentary, and users had to be equipped with programming skills in order to effectively work the machines. So the uptake of computers really only took off in the third phase around the late nineties when the internet came along. Browser centric and single use applications defined this period.
Then we come to the current period that everyone is familiar with – the Digital age. The advent of smart mobile phones brought about the whole conversation surrounding mobility. And it is also this time that the word “digital” came about. As a tech insider, I would split this phase into two parts. Raw, native mobile apps characterised the first part. The second part, which commenced around 2018 and is still ongoing, is marked by the confluence of various technologies such as cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) transforming the world we live in today. I’ll call it the Digital+ age. Q: What is the significance of these changes? KP: In every phase, technology not only becomes more human-centric and more accessible to people, its impact to the world also becomes more significant. For individuals, tech brings convenience,
connects them to others and makes collaborations over different geographies possible. Likewise, for businesses, tech makes collecting and sharing information easier, facilitating not just faster but also better decision making. And if we were to just remember that individuals and businesses have always wanted these, and they are now all made possible by tech, it is easy to understand why most businesses today either see themselves as or aspire to be tech companies. Similarly, it will be hard to find a person whose life has not improved in one way or another because of tech. That is – the power of tech and the driving force behind its continued evolution. From the tech perspective, as we move through the different phases, app development goes from closed to open source, and standalone systems to cloud-based architecture. Effectively,
