Raju Chellam

Could you share about your educational background and the early days of your career path?

There's an old saying, "Man proposes, God disposes." I studied to be a surgeon but fate steered me towards software & to become a scribe. In the early 1980s, I was privileged to write India's first computer column that ran weekly in The Economic Times.

Fast-forward to the early 1990s when I moved to Singapore to spend a decade as BizIT Editor of The Business Times. I then transitioned into senior management roles at Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

I now contribute to the future of tech governance as Editor-in-Chief of the world's first AI Ethics & Governance Body of Knowledge, Hon Chair of Cloud & Data Standards at IT Standards Committee, and member of the AI Coordinating Committee under Enterprise Singapore.

For students interested in a career in tech, what skills matter today?

Here is my set of seven skills for you to consider cultivating to get and retain a job in the AI era:

• Adaptability: Develop the capacity to continuously learn, pivot & master new workflows as tech shifts. Get fluent in AI tools & develop a high tolerance for ambiguity.
• Business: Get a strong grasp of how your org generates value, rather than just how individual tasks are completed. Leverage AI to understand business models, financials & customer needs.
• Collaboration: Learn to work seamlessly across human & AI workflows, but know when to defer to human judgment. Use AI as a collaborative teammate rather than a standalone tool.
• Domain: Deep knowledge in specific sectors like healthcare, finance, engineering, retail, transportation, manufacturing, etc will continue to be of immense value in the AI era.
• Engagement: Hone your inner drive to remain curious & resilient during rapid tech changes. Focus on emotional intelligence & authentic human connection with colleagues & customers.
• Focus: Build discipline & cognitive attention. This means cutting through data noise, prioritizing high-value objectives, allocating time for reading both fiction & non-fiction.
• Government: Be aware of laws, ethics, compliance & public policy related to AI. This includes data privacy, AI governance, risk management & use of responsible/ethical AI.

What should youths pay attention to if they want to understand technology and AI?

Here are my set of 7 tech trends for youth to be aware of and try to leverage on:

• Agentic AI: More hype, less action so far. But by 2030, 50% of new economic value will come from businesses investing in and scaling their AI capabilities using Agentic AI.
• Think ASEAN: Grouping of 11 states with population of 680m & a PPP (purchasing power parity) GDP of US$13.5 trillion. Singapore will assume the ASEAN chair in 2027.
• Cybersec: Implementing AI without cybersec is like building a mansion without putting locks on the doors. Learn to use AI for anomaly identification, threat detection & mitigation.
• Digital Twin: Implement digital twin tech & IoT sensors for end-to-end visibility. Combine AI with scenario planning to anticipate disruptions across supply/value chains.
• Robotics: Singapore has ~750 robots per 10,000 humans in manufacturing. The future is HCI (Human-Computer AI) that blends human intel with AI/ML to achieve org goals ethically.
• Sustainability: By 2028, 50% of electricity going to run data centers will be used for AI, leaving clouds of emissions in their wake. Will you be an activist or a bystander?
• Empathy: Means moving beyond accuracy metrics towards human outcomes. Means evaluating whether models helped users feel understood, not just whether they returned correct outputs.