CLOSING REMARKS BY SRIJAY GHOSH, FOUNDING MEMBER AND CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER, TEMUS, AT THE STEP IT UP GRADUATION CEREMONY ON  7 MARCH 2023, TUESDAY

Srijay Ghosh
Founding member and chief revenue officer,
Temus

Song Hwee, Chairman, Temus and Deputy CEO, Temasek International, Kiren, Deputy CE, IMDA and team, Graduands, family and friends, Ladies and gentlemen -

A very good afternoon and thank you for celebrating this occasion with us.

LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND

When we were drafting the manifesto for Step IT Up last year, we thought of many ways to define it: Be the change you want to see; let's not be defined by our limits.

But in the end, what ended up being the spirit of Step IT Up was “Leave no one behind”. And guess who came up with this? It was actually you. It was the spirit that defined your class, and it is why we are here today.

They say that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go together. When we called on people to join our first run of Step IT Up, we looked for deserving individuals with no background in IT to come and transform themselves, and also transform Temus.

We believe that just as companies cannot fully transform without transforming their people, Singapore's progress as a Smart Nation depends on the collective transformation of its citizens.

Leaving no one behind means committing ourselves to going far together – a commitment that each of you have made to one another and to Temus in your transformation journey.

ARCHITECTING STEP IT UP FOR SINGAPORE

When Temus was founded, it was as much about building digital capabilities as it was about developing talent. We believe that people and talent are the very core to any transformation. It's very close to Temus’ purpose, what we do, and how we do it.

To fulfil our purpose, we set out to define Step IT Up in Singapore and develop homegrown talent while noting that it would be quite challenging to bring people from various backgrounds together.

The Step IT Up Think Tank team – led by BG, Melody, Ridzuan, Delaine, Rahul, Stephanie, Sze Meng, Dheeraj – was bootstrapped from people from diverse backgrounds, just as the SIU trainees came together from diverse backgrounds.

We were rigorous in our candidate selection. We believed that with the right blend of learning agility, motivation, and providing the right coaching and support, we could help trainees make the switch.

The programme ended and culminated with a capstone assignment on integrated mobility to demonstrate that you can perform on real-life, real-world use cases.

All of you are here because you have proven yourself worthy. You have chosen to embrace this new path ahead. Your transformation makes this event very special and fulfilling for us. You have not only overcome the obstacles that came along the way, but you have stepped it up together, leaving no one behind.

BEING THE CHANGE FOR THE NEXT COHORT

While I'm encouraged by each of your successes and the progress that you have made, I think it's still in the early days for Step IT Up. Your experience and feedback through the programme have inspired us to learn more and make it even better as we commence our next programme and look at future programmes ahead.

We have learned how to get better at marketing the programme, how to select the best, motivated people, and how to better manage the programme specifically thanks to your feedback.

We have learned how to get better at communicating and managing expectations and transitions with more consistent and singular messaging on performance and progression, as candidates go through the programme. Thank you so much for your feedback.

In the future, we'll continue to challenge ourselves, learn, and make this programme better. But if there's something that we want to assure you, is that we'll always keep the Step IT Up trainees and their success central to how we design the programme going forward.

CONCLUSION

I would like to finally take this opportunity to thank our partners for joining us as well and giving Step IT Up a strong start: UST, MCI IMDA, DISG, GovTech, and most of all the parents, family, and friends of all our graduates.

I'm grateful for your trust in Temus’ commitment to unlock not just economic value, but societal value for Singapore.

This is a mission that defines what we can really accomplish collectively together when no one is left behind and when we step it up together as the change we wish to see for Singapore and for the rest of the world.

Thank you.