The National Institute of Education at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NIE NTU, Singapore) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced a three-year partnership aimed at driving educational innovation and developing cutting-edge digital competencies for educators and students in Singapore. The collaboration includes the launch of the Technology for Education Centre (TEC), an innovation hub based on the NIE campus, to accelerate the digital transformation of teaching and learning.
Technology for Education Centre to support innovation
The TEC is designed to serve as a collaborative space where educators, students, researchers, and industry partners can work together to prototype and test new educational technologies. It will offer access to cloud-based tools and AI applications in a secure environment, encouraging the development of responsible and pedagogically sound solutions. The Centre also includes dedicated zones for prototyping and experimenting with new technologies, with support from AWS and industry collaborators.
This initiative supports the NIE’s ongoing efforts to reimagine the future of education through the use of intelligent technologies. The TEC is expected to serve as a testbed for educational research and innovation, helping to align teaching methods with the needs of modern learners while reinforcing NIE’s Values, Skills, and Knowledge (V3SK) framework.
Equipping educators with digital skills
As part of the agreement, NIE staff and students will benefit from AWS’s cloud-focused learning initiatives, including access to the AWS Skill Builder platform and AI-powered learning simulations. These programmes are intended to enhance digital fluency and confidence among educators, enabling them to incorporate cloud and AI tools into their teaching and research practices.
Joint research will be carried out to explore applications of AI, data analytics, and emerging digital technologies in education. Researchers at NIE will investigate data-driven approaches to improve teaching, learning outcomes, and educational policy-making. These initiatives aim to help educators respond to the evolving demands of the education sector, both locally and globally.
In addition, the partnership supports student-led service-learning projects using AWS’s generative AI tools, such as Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Q Developer. These projects are intended to tackle real-world issues, promoting innovation, community engagement, and problem-solving among students.
Supporting Singapore’s AI education strategy
The partnership forms a key part of NIE’s AI for Education strategy, AIEd@NIE, and aligns with the goals of Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS 2.0), which seeks to build an AI-ready workforce. It also complements AWS’s AI Spring Singapore initiative, which promotes community engagement and research in AI technologies.
Professor Liu Woon Chia, Director of NIE, stated, “This strategic partnership signifies a shared commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technologies to transform education in Singapore. Together, we are transforming how teachers teach, how students learn, and how research shapes real-world policy and practice.”
Elsie Tan, Country Manager for the Worldwide Public Sector at AWS Singapore, added, “Educators shape our future workforce. By combining the NIE’s expertise with AWS’s AI technologies in experiential learning, we’re supporting Singapore’s Smart Nation vision to develop digitally empowered teachers ready to address tomorrow’s challenges with confidence and digital fluency.”
Future plans under the partnership include co-hosted workshops, hackathons, and student-led forums to explore the ethical implications of AI in education. These will cover important topics such as algorithmic bias, data privacy, surveillance, and collaboration between humans and AI.
The collaboration signals a significant step forward in Singapore’s ambition to become a global leader in educational technology. It aims not only to enhance the skills of today’s educators and learners but also to shape the educational landscape of tomorrow across the ASEAN region and beyond.
