In the weekend after COVID’s circuit breaker was announced, Engineering Good, was suddenly inundated with requests for laptops for low-income students who were going through home-based learning, but did not have any portable devices at home to access the e-learning.
A friend from a Family Service Centre asked the previous Executive Director, Johann, if he had 20 laptops. 20 sounded impossible to get over a weekend. Yet Johann quickly gathered 20 laptops for the students from one Facebook post.
It was incredible to see. Suddenly students living in low-income rental flats, who could never afford a laptop before, could access learning, anytime, anywhere. I was first introduced to Engineering Good when I was a social worker, working amongst low-income families.
One of the most trying experiences came when I was working with a teen who was playing truant. Out of five days of school, she would only appear on two days. When I first knocked on the door, I stood outside for ten minutes, and heard occasional laughter inside. They were not going to let me in so easily.
But I knocked, and knocked, until they eventually let me in. One of the first conversations was about why she didn’t want to go to school.
It’s very cold in the morning.
In my mind, I thought,
This is Singapore! How cold can it get?
She then added,
We don’t have hot water to bathe in the morning.
Later, her brother came out. I asked where he was going.
Oh, to McDonald’s to get the free WIFI.
Hot water. WIFI. Things I took for granted, but which were uncommon in the lives of these families. Later, the boy needed to study at home. We got him his first-ever laptop, and when he first received it, his eyes lit up.
How did you get this?
Someone donated it?
Huh? Singapore got so kind people?
He was surprised that people would be this kind in Singapore. The laptop expanded his horizons. Yes, he occasionally used it for gaming.
But it also furthered his ability to learn independently, with no hindrances.
Giving the dignity of something they own
More importantly, it gave him dignity.
In the past, he would have to borrow laptops from teachers. Even when we were trying to borrow a laptop, we had to fill up a 5-page form. But not going through this process gave him the dignity to not need to fill up long forms, and to enjoy a laptop, with no frills.
He could own it, and take care of it like it was his own. No longer would he have to worry about needing to give back a laptop he’d grown to love. He could make it his.
Here at The Helping Hand, we have also seen the power of issuing great technology to those who need them. One of our residents, Nathan (not his real name), had recently moved from his role in the kitchen, to helping the bakery to market its signature bakes. There was a snag.
He had no laptop to do the Canva designs and Capcut videos that would help with the marketing. I asked Engineering Good, not sure if they would give.
Laptops, as bicycles for our minds
But they did! Since then, he’s tucked the Lenovo T14 under his arm as he films shots, takes meetings, and finds angles to better market the bakes. And for many of these residents, who have gone through most of their lives without a professional job that allows them the use of their creativity and skills, this means a lot to them.
As Steve Jobs once said about the laptop,
“It’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”
Learning and doing “Daiso innovation”
But Engineering Good (EG) is not just about digital inclusion. It’s also about equipping youths and the disability community with the skills to engineer better tools for those who lack accessibility. Over the years, EG has organized multiple Tech For Good workshops, teaching youths, disability-sector professionals, caregivers and persons with disabilities the skills to invent and adapt tools for those with disabilities.
Most recently, there was an elderly uncle who needed a one-handed nail trimmer. Because of his disability, he couldn’t hold a nail clipper steadily to trim his nails. As a result, he had to go to the manicurist every month and pay $50 to them to trim his nails. When he was first approached to go to the workshop, he was averse to it. He felt naturally embarrassed that he had to ask people for help. But his friends persuaded him.
EG staff guided the elderly uncle to build a one-handed nail trimmer that was assembled together from off-the-shelf products from Daiso and Taobao. Denise, who manages Impact at EG, jokes that they encourage “Daiso innovation” at these workshops. Innovation doesn’t have to be with expensive products or technical tools.
Instead, it’s about coming up with a good problem statement. Often, we build without a proper idea of the problem we are solving. EG’s programmes teach participants how to define problem statements, approach problem-solving, and develop DIY technical skills to solder, tinker, and code, so that an electronic part or off-the-shelf item can be useful for persons with disabilities and their caregivers.
Learning technical skills
One of EG’s big pushes has been to equip our younger generation with hands-on, technical skills. Singapore’s most famous tech-preneur was Sim Wong Hoo, the founder of Creative Technology. What we often miss in his founding story was his time at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, where he took on electrical and electronic engineering, giving him the skills to first understand circuit boards, and eventually build them.
EG has gone into schools to run programmes, so that our next generation can learn practical hands-on skills that can benefit the community.
As EG looks to its future, one of its continued hopes is to find skilled volunteers to teach these skills. Understanding circuitry, programming, and building are not easy tasks, and require some amount of expertise. But they have fortunately found the skills of big corporates like DBS, helpful in imparting these skills to the next generation.
Most importantly, their work shows that at least in this corner of Singapore, there are still people who are still tinkering, still experimenting, still doing better, with what they have, rather than waiting for better things to come to them. And such is the spirit we must keep in Singapore – that of brave experiment, a constant refurbishment of the old, so as to make the new better.
If you’d like to volunteer, please reach out to them. And of course, if you know someone in need of these laptops or assistive tech, please approach them. They would be more than happy to help.