AGENDA
Learning Technologies Asia 2020 will happen on March 23 – 24, 10:00am – 3:45pm Singapore time.
From 2010-2019, we were already experiencing radical changes in learning and development and then 2020 hit. COVID-19 and some of the other unrest in the world have forced companies to take a hard look at their business models, strategies, and budgets. As a result, last year L&D didn’t simply evolve. It transformed. Leading organizations have embraced new technology, tools, and mindsets not just to enhance employee effectiveness and engagement, but to ensure they remain viable and competitive through the current upheavals and into the next decade.
Join Dani Johnson, Cofounder and Principal Analyst at RedThread Research, and Heather Gilmartin Adams, Senior Analyst at RedThread Research, for an exploration of the near future of employee development, including:
- Technology and trends that have fundamentally changed the way we develop employees
- What will matter to organizations moving forward and how that changes L&D’s job
- The future of work, the worker, and what it means for ensuring a skilled workforce
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/dani-120x120.png)
Dani is Co-founder and Principal Analyst for RedThread Research. She has spent the majority of her career writing about, conducting research in, and consulting on human capital practices and technology.
Before starting RedThread, Dani led the Learning and Career research practice at Bersin, Deloitte. Her ideas can be found in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, CLO Magazine, HR Magazine, and Employment Relations.
Dani holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University.
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/dani-90x90.png)
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/heather-120x120.png)
Heather is a senior analyst at RedThread Research. Trained in conflict resolution and organizational development, Heather has spent the past ten years in various capacities at organizational culture and mindset change consultancies as well as the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
She holds a masters degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelors degree in history from Princeton University. She has lived in Germany, China, Japan, and India and was, for one summer, a wrangler on a dude ranch in Colorado.
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/heather-90x90.png)
This presentation examines how and why a Learning Management System (LMS) and a Learning Experience Platform (LXP) can and should be used together to achieve a modern approach to the development of capability in an organisation. Along the way it will look at integration of the LMS and the LXP to achieve best practice User Experience (UX)

Alexander Roche, BSc MA App Ling, Founder and Principal Educational Technologist of Edutech infrastructure and services specialist Androgogic Alexander has more than 25 years of experience with online learning in higher education, VET, government and corporate arenas including deploying, hosting, maintaining and supporting educational technologies as well as online educational design and quality assured courseware production. Alexander has led online learning companies since the late 1990s including executive posts at NextEd (Vice President, IT), the University of New South Wales (CTO ETC), e-cademy (CTO and Public Company Board Director).

In early 2020, the advent of COVID-19 pandemic battered the global economy and education systems, shutting businesses and schools worldwide. As businesses worldwide postpone and cancel in-person meetings in response to the pandemic, workplace learning is emerging as one of the earliest and hardest-hit business activities. However, the effort in reskilling at the business-unit level or a company-wide aspirational transformation cannot simply stop on critical workplace learning, even as business move rapidly to put employee safety first. Digital and virtual learning programs were already on the rise before COVID-19 struck, and we already see a marked increase in such learning programmes, which many younger employees embrace. The unprecedented crisis reshapes and challenges learning professionals to ensure short-term operational continuity and strategic measures, such as going beyond alternative digital learning strategies to safeguard their long-term viability. More importantly, this period has seen the acceleration of higher education’s digital transformation, giving rise to new opportunities for learning and development professionals to reimagine the future of workplace learning in a post-Covid-19 world. The experimentation in digital learning provided stakeholders with the ideal situation to reconsider leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) in workplace learning innovation. This talk focuses on several strategic application of AI in workplace learning.

Dr Samson Tan is the head of the Centre for Innovation in Learning. He helms innovation in learning at the National Institute of Education (NIE). NIE is an autonomous institute of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Ranked 10th in the world and 2nd in Asia by the QS World University Rankings in the subject of Education in 2015, the institute is the sole teacher education institute for teachers in Singapore. At his vantage point, Samson advises the Teaching and Learning Committee and IT Governance Committee in awarding grants for learning innovation projects.
Prior to joining NIE, Samson was involved in the SkillsFuture movement, spearheading the lifelong learning and workplace learning initiatives in Singapore. He worked closely with the Logistics, Hotel and Biomedical industries in providing research, consulting, and training in workplace learning. At Republic Polytechnic, Samson provided advice in pedagogical innovation for various industries including the aviation engineering and management programmes.
Samson graduated with a Doctor of Education (EdD) from the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2007. His research interest is in learning innovation and transformation. Currently, he is a member of the Executive Board of Association for Problem-based and Active Learning, (http://www.panpbl.org/about/#board), the Executive Committee on Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS http://eras.org.sg/about-us/executive-committee-current/) and RMIT’s Singapore Aviation Industry Advisory Committee.

Right now, upskilling your workforce is a matter of survival.
Those who act fast have a game-changing opportunity to get ahead of the competition.
Massive workforce shifts in 2020 have forced countless organizations to rethink how work gets done. A key piece of that is supporting workers in keeping their skills current – and building new ones. If you’re wondering what skills are critical to you moving in 2021, it depends entirely on who you are, where you work, and what you do.
Degreed published the State of Skills report to help you identify where skills are most at-risk of becoming obsolete. Among the 5,000+ workers, team managers, and business leaders we surveyed, demand is strongest for technological skills. However, they’re also looking to develop their social and cognitive skills.
Join us for a conversation on where you should focus your energy and investment, and understand what skills are the most urgent in your industry and country!

Ajay is a successful consultative business leader with 20+ years of experience developing and nurturing long-term client relationships. He currently serves as VP of India, South East Asia, & Middle East at Degreed. Prior to Degreed, he served as a Country Manager (India) at Lynda.com and AVP: Consulting Services at Right Management.

How in the arch of time for Learning systems/platforms it’s gone through from being a novelty through to just being useful, but last year as we pushed the boundaries and change the way we work. Learning can now be found anywhere, at any time, contextually without consideration that someone must GO to the LMS. The emergence of technology as a central hub for work and collaboration also see the shift from Learning and Learning Systems into a Transparent process – something that has happened when technology has found its balance between need and innovation

Senior Level Global Learning Architect & Strategist
Over 20 years in the learning and talent fields, Brent has successfully initiated and optimized development ecosystems and training programs during his career in the HR, Utilities and Energy industries. Notable accomplishments include being recognized by WebEx as their “Innovator of the Year” in 2005 and by Skillsoft as the “2007 Learning Leader of the Year.”

While the word humanizing tech means designing technology to be better for humans, join me to discover how to Humanize Mind-sets to meet the demands of evolving technology in the L & D Space.

Vinisha Jayaswal is a seasoned learning & Organizational Development professional with about 20 years of experience across various industries.
A result driven OD & Service orientation specialist valued for designing and facilitating change interventions, she believes and excels in seamlessly aligning stakeholders and achieving results through focus on customer centricity. She has helped organizations & individuals thrive with best in the Learning Strategy.
Vinisha is a motivational speaker and facilitator of high repute. Her facilitation programs and executive coaching sessions are widely appreciated for their high quality content coupled with a unique thought provoking, stimulating and entertaining style of delivery and an enduring commitment towards excellence.
Her core competencies lie in Organization Development, Employee Engagement, Customer Service, Leadership & Behavioural facilitation and a renewed passion for achieving success.
She is a very determined, focused and delivery oriented professional.
Her programs are incredibly insightful and inspire action by unleashing innate energies within the participants.
The many awards & citations she has won are proof of her delivery capability and her understanding of complex situations which need to be overcome through facilitation, training and learning methodologies.
She has also been the Past President of the International Association of Facilitators – India Chapter; a non-profit voluntary organisation.

Companies wanting to future-proof their workforce’s ability to respond to the unexpected are moving from an efficiency-driven organization to one more focused on agility and resilience, thus continuously transforming. With transformation an everyday reality, how can you ensure that your learning team has the skills and agility it takes to support the business in the age of uncertainty? An agile L&D function, equipped with right tools and tech, is the pre-requisite to building a culture of curiosity and learning. Join Annee as she introduces the 5 principles of an agile and future-ready L&D

Annee has 20+ years in L&D, M&A and HR Technologies with international blue chips like Bosch, Alstom, General Electric and Danone. She has led learning design and delivery organizations including building centers of expertise around design, and digital transformation and HR efficiency. She was also the Chief Learning Officer at Danone with a huge focus on workforce capability and readiness. She currently serves as EdCast’s Chief Learning Strategist, where she proudly claims that she’s helping humans to stay relevant. Obsessed with innovation and new technology impacts on society, she spends her time evangelizing about the Future of Work to anyone who will listen. She is secretly afraid of robots taking over the world.

A high-level overview of the Degreed Functionality to upskill your workforce

An Intelligent Solutions expert with 15+ years in improving and developing products and processes based on customer requirements and trends in the market. A comprehensive understanding of the education and edtech landscape, helping organisations understand the value of skills & learning and unlocking their digital transformations.


Andrea is an Education Researcher with a PhD in Educational Sciences from the Université de Lille. She has a special interest in educational technologies and competency building in collaborative and social learning environments. She also has 10 years of experience in higher education and corporate L&D with NC State University, the University of Technology of Compiegne, the University of Lille, Ubisoft and Danone. She currently serves as a Learning Strategist at EdCast where she supports organizations in building better and more effective learning experiences for their employees. Yes, her hair is that color on purpose.


With over 16 years of experience in the IT Industry, including 15 years of Pre-Sales, Project Management, Implementation, Consulting, Product Marketing in HR / Payroll domain in On-Premise / Cloud platform, worked with customers in multiple sectors like such as education, banking and Government sectors in Asia. Result-driven and dedicated Pre Sales consultant with an extensive experience in providing professional services, developing sales collaterals, and making sales proposals.


Georgina is a passionate about educational technology and its ability to effectively share knowledge and transform organisations.
This passion is coupled with an advocacy for using best learning practices to empower people to reach their potential. Georgina works closely with clients to ensure their vision for learning and development is realised through the use of technology.


Justin is the Director of Strategic accounts at Skillsoft (Asia), a market leading cloud-based learning and talent management solutions provider. For over 10 years, he has been working closely with senior executives across Management, HR, Operations and IT – helping them optimise people, time, resources and performance.
Passionate about providing on-demand digital programs that deliver strategic value, through enabling scalable learning at any time, any place and for any need.


Kwong Yue Yang works with companies from different cultures, countries, and industries to improve workplace efficiency and productivity through better communications. Clients he’s worked with include Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Salesforce, Siemens, CBRE, Mercer and Maersk.


Joanne Hor the role of DBS Chief Learning Officer, Group Human Resources from 1 March 2021.
She brings with her 18 years of experience in Business HR, Resourcing, Talent Management and Organisational Development. Prior to joining DBS in 2015, Joanne was the Business HR lead for retail banking, wealth management, insurance and asset management at HSBC Singapore. Joanne’s HR experience spans a diverse spectrum of international roles across different portfolios, including postings to Dubai, Hong Kong, London and Singapore.

With rapid changes in technology demands and uncertainties related to the global pandemic, organizational growth hinges on employees with the right behavioral and technical competencies. Though digital transformation creates tremendous opportunities to address many challenges in our current time, it requires people to leverage the investment in these technologies, and leadership development which is agile and innovative to maintain engagement and morale

Benny Ramos is Skillsoft’s solution expert for business and leadership training serving Western North America, Oceania, and Asia (including India). A seasoned strategist in the Talent and Learning industry, Benny has over 17 years’ experience in the learning industry and brings relevant insights and practical experience to many of Skillsoft’s largest global enterprises.
In the Global Solution Practice, Benny collaborates with organizations to help them understand how to best utilize learning content and technology to drive performance and support talent management strategies. Benny has a keen understanding of leadership competencies and best practices and acts as the “Voice of the Customer” to help drive innovation and improvement of Skillsoft business and leadership learning solutions. He is also versant in technology and developer solutions to enable conversations on the importance of digital transformation by todays leaders.
Benny career spans various roles supporting learning including leadership development, consulting, and driving strategy around learning technologies, and social learning & talent management platforms. Prior to joining the Skillsoft team, Benny was a Skillsoft client working for a large Canadian telecommunications company whose learning program received many awards for its formal, informal, and social learning strategies. Benny’s past experience as a client helps him to provide strategic and tactical perspective. He is passionate about leveraging technology to improve the experience in all aspects of the employee life cycle.
Benny has been a featured speaker on the topic of online learning and authoring at various events sponsored by AACE, Conference Board of Canada, CSTD, EMG, and Skillsoft own Perspectives conferences both in Canada and US, and online with the Gronstedt Group, HR.com and HCI.
Before becoming a Skillsoft Solution principal, Benny led a team of Skillsoft Customer Success Managers in North America with clients across a spectrum of industries and sizes including state and higher education. His group supported clients by providing advice and guidance on learning strategies, marketing, and measurement of their learning initiatives. Success is measured by the impact Skillsoft learning solutions had on their clients’ learning initiatives.
Benny is a huge advocate of community involvement as a member of his local community board. He graduated from University in his hometown in Calgary, Alberta at University of Calgary- the same city he calls home, and completed a marketing management development program from Kenan-Flagler.

How might we combine the best of working and learning, both virtually and physically? As many of us now know, virtual teams are cost-effective and convenient, but they can be isolating. They can also fail to foster social networks and casual conversations that promote creativity and innovation. Online learning can help us boost productivity and innovation with new skills and ideas, and it is wonderfully cost-effective. However, it can be very disengaging and sometimes fails to translate into real changes at work.
Join Dr. Meadows as she shares insights and behind-the-scenes stories about virtual collaboration, transformative global education, and ELO (Engaged Learning Online), the studio-based approach at S P Jain School of Global Management. What works? When do we still need to gather in-person? What’s on the horizon for the Future of Work and how to manage it? What is on the horizon for learning and using it to unleash productivity and innovation? What ideas will you take back to the office, to unleash your own future, too?

One of Asia’s Top-10 Women in IT, Dr. Meadows leads a Design Thinking & Innovation Center at a Forbes Top-20 International Business School, creating growth initiatives at the intersection of IT, business strategy, and design. Her research, consulting, and coaching focus on Leadership & Creativity. She co-founded an Advanced Technology Think Tank & Tinker Lab, envisioning the Future of Work (FoW) and Education, applying AI, biometrics, and other advanced technologies to leadership development, team productivity, and group innovation. She holds a Doctorate in Business Administration & IT from Harvard Business School and has over 20 years’ experience in Asia, Europe, and North America as a consultant, coach, entrepreneur, dot-com builder, innovation lab co-founder, and Accenture IT & Business Strategy consultant.

2020 was the year of uncertainty. Countries, organisations, and individuals were all thrown into uncertainty and forced to adapt. As we progress into 2021, there is more stability and resilience, yet no one is certain what the workplace will look like at the end of the year or even in two to three years time.
What will your organization workplace look like? Will you return to a physical office? Will it remain remote? Or will you be able to find a hybrid balance? More importantly, how do you design learning and development programs that can transition from virtual to hybrid to physical?
Kwong will share “learning principles” that helped Own The Room and it’s clients transition from physical trainings to virtual trainings, but will also guide them into the future, regardless of what form the workplace takes.

Kwong Yue Yang works with companies from different cultures, countries, and industries to improve workplace efficiency and productivity through better communications. Clients he’s worked with include Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Salesforce, Siemens, CBRE, Mercer and Maersk.

In this session, Roby will discuss Sinar Mas Land’s L&D strategy on engaging employees starting from the onboarding process, into the development of the employee’s paths in L&D to ensure they are engaged and productive, and promotions in the organization through targeted learning practices. Roby will also showcase the learning tools Sinar Mas Land uses, share some insights on the challenges he faced as an L&D Leader and tips on how to transform these challenges into opportunities including and how these practices provided positive impacts on employees.

Roby is a HR Professional with more than 14 years of working experiences in various industries for both multinational as well as large local conglomerates. He started his career as a Head Hunter back in 2006 in an Executive Recruitment Firm to become the Head of Recruitment in fortune 500 company. Aside from recruitment, he is also experience in handling the development strategy for Management Trainee as well as Managerial Development Program in both recruiting and program development. Since 2018, he joined Sinar Mas Land (the largest property developer company in Indonesia). His current role is as the Head of Learning and Development.

Jean will be sharing about Shopee’s incredible journey of growth as a proud homegrown Singaporean company over the past five years, and the household name’s commitment to investing and nurturing a steadfast pipeline of local tech talent, which in turn translates into supporting an extensive network of users, partners, sellers and the overarching e-commerce community. Come find out more about Shopee’s talent development strategy with employee experience and culture at the forefront of it all!

As Regional People team at Shopee, Jean oversees the company’s talent acquisition, learning & development, and employee engagement strategy across the region. She taps on her skills and knowledge in consulting, design thinking, psychology, organisational development & program development, to attract talent and engage Shopee employees. Jean holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences, Psychology from the National University of Singapore. She also graduated summa cum laude with a Masters in Psychology from the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The future of learning is “Flash or Invisible Learning” – we may not have a Learning and Development function in the company anymore. Flash learning is a super small bite size learning using personalized learning (AI) technology. Invisible learning on the other hand, are all learnings that are embedded in the flow of everything e.g. work and life. In my opinion, the future of learning no longer focuses on the skill, instead will heavily focus on business performance or career growth. Join me on my session and understand my thoughts as the conversations that I will have with the top management in the future will be entirely different



Justin is the Director of Strategic accounts at Skillsoft (Asia), a market leading cloud-based learning and talent management solutions provider. For over 10 years, he has been working closely with senior executives across Management, HR, Operations and IT – helping them optimise people, time, resources and performance.
Passionate about providing on-demand digital programs that deliver strategic value, through enabling scalable learning at any time, any place and for any need.

A high-level overview of the Degreed Functionality to upskill your workforce

An Intelligent Solutions expert with 15+ years in improving and developing products and processes based on customer requirements and trends in the market. A comprehensive understanding of the education and edtech landscape, helping organisations understand the value of skills & learning and unlocking their digital transformations.


Andrea is an Education Researcher with a PhD in Educational Sciences from the Université de Lille. She has a special interest in educational technologies and competency building in collaborative and social learning environments. She also has 10 years of experience in higher education and corporate L&D with NC State University, the University of Technology of Compiegne, the University of Lille, Ubisoft and Danone. She currently serves as a Learning Strategist at EdCast where she supports organizations in building better and more effective learning experiences for their employees. Yes, her hair is that color on purpose.


With over 16 years of experience in the IT Industry, including 15 years of Pre-Sales, Project Management, Implementation, Consulting, Product Marketing in HR / Payroll domain in On-Premise / Cloud platform, worked with customers in multiple sectors like such as education, banking and Government sectors in Asia. Result-driven and dedicated Pre Sales consultant with an extensive experience in providing professional services, developing sales collaterals, and making sales proposals.


Georgina is a passionate about educational technology and its ability to effectively share knowledge and transform organisations.
This passion is coupled with an advocacy for using best learning practices to empower people to reach their potential. Georgina works closely with clients to ensure their vision for learning and development is realised through the use of technology.


Kwong Yue Yang works with companies from different cultures, countries, and industries to improve workplace efficiency and productivity through better communications. Clients he’s worked with include Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Salesforce, Siemens, CBRE, Mercer and Maersk.

From 2010-2019, we were already experiencing radical changes in learning and development and then 2020 hit. COVID-19 and some of the other unrest in the world have forced companies to take a hard look at their business models, strategies, and budgets. As a result, last year L&D didn’t simply evolve. It transformed. Leading organizations have embraced new technology, tools, and mindsets not just to enhance employee effectiveness and engagement, but to ensure they remain viable and competitive through the current upheavals and into the next decade.
Join Dani Johnson, Cofounder and Principal Analyst at RedThread Research, and Heather Gilmartin Adams, Senior Analyst at RedThread Research, for an exploration of the near future of employee development, including:
- Technology and trends that have fundamentally changed the way we develop employees
- What will matter to organizations moving forward and how that changes L&D’s job
- The future of work, the worker, and what it means for ensuring a skilled workforce
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/dani-120x120.png)
Dani is Co-founder and Principal Analyst for RedThread Research. She has spent the majority of her career writing about, conducting research in, and consulting on human capital practices and technology.
Before starting RedThread, Dani led the Learning and Career research practice at Bersin, Deloitte. Her ideas can be found in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, CLO Magazine, HR Magazine, and Employment Relations.
Dani holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University.
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/dani-90x90.png)
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/heather-120x120.png)
Heather is a senior analyst at RedThread Research. Trained in conflict resolution and organizational development, Heather has spent the past ten years in various capacities at organizational culture and mindset change consultancies as well as the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
She holds a masters degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelors degree in history from Princeton University. She has lived in Germany, China, Japan, and India and was, for one summer, a wrangler on a dude ranch in Colorado.
![[Exclusive Keynote Session] A New Era: Trends In Learning And Employee Development image](https://www.learningtechnologiesasia.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/heather-90x90.png)
This presentation examines how and why a Learning Management System (LMS) and a Learning Experience Platform (LXP) can and should be used together to achieve a modern approach to the development of capability in an organisation. Along the way it will look at integration of the LMS and the LXP to achieve best practice User Experience (UX)

Alexander Roche, BSc MA App Ling, Founder and Principal Educational Technologist of Edutech infrastructure and services specialist Androgogic Alexander has more than 25 years of experience with online learning in higher education, VET, government and corporate arenas including deploying, hosting, maintaining and supporting educational technologies as well as online educational design and quality assured courseware production. Alexander has led online learning companies since the late 1990s including executive posts at NextEd (Vice President, IT), the University of New South Wales (CTO ETC), e-cademy (CTO and Public Company Board Director).

In early 2020, the advent of COVID-19 pandemic battered the global economy and education systems, shutting businesses and schools worldwide. As businesses worldwide postpone and cancel in-person meetings in response to the pandemic, workplace learning is emerging as one of the earliest and hardest-hit business activities. However, the effort in reskilling at the business-unit level or a company-wide aspirational transformation cannot simply stop on critical workplace learning, even as business move rapidly to put employee safety first. Digital and virtual learning programs were already on the rise before COVID-19 struck, and we already see a marked increase in such learning programmes, which many younger employees embrace. The unprecedented crisis reshapes and challenges learning professionals to ensure short-term operational continuity and strategic measures, such as going beyond alternative digital learning strategies to safeguard their long-term viability. More importantly, this period has seen the acceleration of higher education’s digital transformation, giving rise to new opportunities for learning and development professionals to reimagine the future of workplace learning in a post-Covid-19 world. The experimentation in digital learning provided stakeholders with the ideal situation to reconsider leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) in workplace learning innovation. This talk focuses on several strategic application of AI in workplace learning.

Dr Samson Tan is the head of the Centre for Innovation in Learning. He helms innovation in learning at the National Institute of Education (NIE). NIE is an autonomous institute of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Ranked 10th in the world and 2nd in Asia by the QS World University Rankings in the subject of Education in 2015, the institute is the sole teacher education institute for teachers in Singapore. At his vantage point, Samson advises the Teaching and Learning Committee and IT Governance Committee in awarding grants for learning innovation projects.
Prior to joining NIE, Samson was involved in the SkillsFuture movement, spearheading the lifelong learning and workplace learning initiatives in Singapore. He worked closely with the Logistics, Hotel and Biomedical industries in providing research, consulting, and training in workplace learning. At Republic Polytechnic, Samson provided advice in pedagogical innovation for various industries including the aviation engineering and management programmes.
Samson graduated with a Doctor of Education (EdD) from the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2007. His research interest is in learning innovation and transformation. Currently, he is a member of the Executive Board of Association for Problem-based and Active Learning, (http://www.panpbl.org/about/#board), the Executive Committee on Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS http://eras.org.sg/about-us/executive-committee-current/) and RMIT’s Singapore Aviation Industry Advisory Committee.

Right now, upskilling your workforce is a matter of survival.
Those who act fast have a game-changing opportunity to get ahead of the competition.
Massive workforce shifts in 2020 have forced countless organizations to rethink how work gets done. A key piece of that is supporting workers in keeping their skills current – and building new ones. If you’re wondering what skills are critical to you moving in 2021, it depends entirely on who you are, where you work, and what you do.
Degreed published the State of Skills report to help you identify where skills are most at-risk of becoming obsolete. Among the 5,000+ workers, team managers, and business leaders we surveyed, demand is strongest for technological skills. However, they’re also looking to develop their social and cognitive skills.
Join us for a conversation on where you should focus your energy and investment, and understand what skills are the most urgent in your industry and country!

Ajay is a successful consultative business leader with 20+ years of experience developing and nurturing long-term client relationships. He currently serves as VP of India, South East Asia, & Middle East at Degreed. Prior to Degreed, he served as a Country Manager (India) at Lynda.com and AVP: Consulting Services at Right Management.

How in the arch of time for Learning systems/platforms it’s gone through from being a novelty through to just being useful, but last year as we pushed the boundaries and change the way we work. Learning can now be found anywhere, at any time, contextually without consideration that someone must GO to the LMS. The emergence of technology as a central hub for work and collaboration also see the shift from Learning and Learning Systems into a Transparent process – something that has happened when technology has found its balance between need and innovation

Senior Level Global Learning Architect & Strategist
Over 20 years in the learning and talent fields, Brent has successfully initiated and optimized development ecosystems and training programs during his career in the HR, Utilities and Energy industries. Notable accomplishments include being recognized by WebEx as their “Innovator of the Year” in 2005 and by Skillsoft as the “2007 Learning Leader of the Year.”

While the word humanizing tech means designing technology to be better for humans, join me to discover how to Humanize Mind-sets to meet the demands of evolving technology in the L & D Space.

Vinisha Jayaswal is a seasoned learning & Organizational Development professional with about 20 years of experience across various industries.
A result driven OD & Service orientation specialist valued for designing and facilitating change interventions, she believes and excels in seamlessly aligning stakeholders and achieving results through focus on customer centricity. She has helped organizations & individuals thrive with best in the Learning Strategy.
Vinisha is a motivational speaker and facilitator of high repute. Her facilitation programs and executive coaching sessions are widely appreciated for their high quality content coupled with a unique thought provoking, stimulating and entertaining style of delivery and an enduring commitment towards excellence.
Her core competencies lie in Organization Development, Employee Engagement, Customer Service, Leadership & Behavioural facilitation and a renewed passion for achieving success.
She is a very determined, focused and delivery oriented professional.
Her programs are incredibly insightful and inspire action by unleashing innate energies within the participants.
The many awards & citations she has won are proof of her delivery capability and her understanding of complex situations which need to be overcome through facilitation, training and learning methodologies.
She has also been the Past President of the International Association of Facilitators – India Chapter; a non-profit voluntary organisation.

Companies wanting to future-proof their workforce’s ability to respond to the unexpected are moving from an efficiency-driven organization to one more focused on agility and resilience, thus continuously transforming. With transformation an everyday reality, how can you ensure that your learning team has the skills and agility it takes to support the business in the age of uncertainty? An agile L&D function, equipped with right tools and tech, is the pre-requisite to building a culture of curiosity and learning. Join Annee as she introduces the 5 principles of an agile and future-ready L&D

Annee has 20+ years in L&D, M&A and HR Technologies with international blue chips like Bosch, Alstom, General Electric and Danone. She has led learning design and delivery organizations including building centers of expertise around design, and digital transformation and HR efficiency. She was also the Chief Learning Officer at Danone with a huge focus on workforce capability and readiness. She currently serves as EdCast’s Chief Learning Strategist, where she proudly claims that she’s helping humans to stay relevant. Obsessed with innovation and new technology impacts on society, she spends her time evangelizing about the Future of Work to anyone who will listen. She is secretly afraid of robots taking over the world.

A high-level overview of the Degreed Functionality to upskill your workforce

An Intelligent Solutions expert with 15+ years in improving and developing products and processes based on customer requirements and trends in the market. A comprehensive understanding of the education and edtech landscape, helping organisations understand the value of skills & learning and unlocking their digital transformations.


Andrea is an Education Researcher with a PhD in Educational Sciences from the Université de Lille. She has a special interest in educational technologies and competency building in collaborative and social learning environments. She also has 10 years of experience in higher education and corporate L&D with NC State University, the University of Technology of Compiegne, the University of Lille, Ubisoft and Danone. She currently serves as a Learning Strategist at EdCast where she supports organizations in building better and more effective learning experiences for their employees. Yes, her hair is that color on purpose.


With over 16 years of experience in the IT Industry, including 15 years of Pre-Sales, Project Management, Implementation, Consulting, Product Marketing in HR / Payroll domain in On-Premise / Cloud platform, worked with customers in multiple sectors like such as education, banking and Government sectors in Asia. Result-driven and dedicated Pre Sales consultant with an extensive experience in providing professional services, developing sales collaterals, and making sales proposals.


Georgina is a passionate about educational technology and its ability to effectively share knowledge and transform organisations.
This passion is coupled with an advocacy for using best learning practices to empower people to reach their potential. Georgina works closely with clients to ensure their vision for learning and development is realised through the use of technology.


Justin is the Director of Strategic accounts at Skillsoft (Asia), a market leading cloud-based learning and talent management solutions provider. For over 10 years, he has been working closely with senior executives across Management, HR, Operations and IT – helping them optimise people, time, resources and performance.
Passionate about providing on-demand digital programs that deliver strategic value, through enabling scalable learning at any time, any place and for any need.


Kwong Yue Yang works with companies from different cultures, countries, and industries to improve workplace efficiency and productivity through better communications. Clients he’s worked with include Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Salesforce, Siemens, CBRE, Mercer and Maersk.


Joanne Hor the role of DBS Chief Learning Officer, Group Human Resources from 1 March 2021.
She brings with her 18 years of experience in Business HR, Resourcing, Talent Management and Organisational Development. Prior to joining DBS in 2015, Joanne was the Business HR lead for retail banking, wealth management, insurance and asset management at HSBC Singapore. Joanne’s HR experience spans a diverse spectrum of international roles across different portfolios, including postings to Dubai, Hong Kong, London and Singapore.

With rapid changes in technology demands and uncertainties related to the global pandemic, organizational growth hinges on employees with the right behavioral and technical competencies. Though digital transformation creates tremendous opportunities to address many challenges in our current time, it requires people to leverage the investment in these technologies, and leadership development which is agile and innovative to maintain engagement and morale

Benny Ramos is Skillsoft’s solution expert for business and leadership training serving Western North America, Oceania, and Asia (including India). A seasoned strategist in the Talent and Learning industry, Benny has over 17 years’ experience in the learning industry and brings relevant insights and practical experience to many of Skillsoft’s largest global enterprises.
In the Global Solution Practice, Benny collaborates with organizations to help them understand how to best utilize learning content and technology to drive performance and support talent management strategies. Benny has a keen understanding of leadership competencies and best practices and acts as the “Voice of the Customer” to help drive innovation and improvement of Skillsoft business and leadership learning solutions. He is also versant in technology and developer solutions to enable conversations on the importance of digital transformation by todays leaders.
Benny career spans various roles supporting learning including leadership development, consulting, and driving strategy around learning technologies, and social learning & talent management platforms. Prior to joining the Skillsoft team, Benny was a Skillsoft client working for a large Canadian telecommunications company whose learning program received many awards for its formal, informal, and social learning strategies. Benny’s past experience as a client helps him to provide strategic and tactical perspective. He is passionate about leveraging technology to improve the experience in all aspects of the employee life cycle.
Benny has been a featured speaker on the topic of online learning and authoring at various events sponsored by AACE, Conference Board of Canada, CSTD, EMG, and Skillsoft own Perspectives conferences both in Canada and US, and online with the Gronstedt Group, HR.com and HCI.
Before becoming a Skillsoft Solution principal, Benny led a team of Skillsoft Customer Success Managers in North America with clients across a spectrum of industries and sizes including state and higher education. His group supported clients by providing advice and guidance on learning strategies, marketing, and measurement of their learning initiatives. Success is measured by the impact Skillsoft learning solutions had on their clients’ learning initiatives.
Benny is a huge advocate of community involvement as a member of his local community board. He graduated from University in his hometown in Calgary, Alberta at University of Calgary- the same city he calls home, and completed a marketing management development program from Kenan-Flagler.

How might we combine the best of working and learning, both virtually and physically? As many of us now know, virtual teams are cost-effective and convenient, but they can be isolating. They can also fail to foster social networks and casual conversations that promote creativity and innovation. Online learning can help us boost productivity and innovation with new skills and ideas, and it is wonderfully cost-effective. However, it can be very disengaging and sometimes fails to translate into real changes at work.
Join Dr. Meadows as she shares insights and behind-the-scenes stories about virtual collaboration, transformative global education, and ELO (Engaged Learning Online), the studio-based approach at S P Jain School of Global Management. What works? When do we still need to gather in-person? What’s on the horizon for the Future of Work and how to manage it? What is on the horizon for learning and using it to unleash productivity and innovation? What ideas will you take back to the office, to unleash your own future, too?

One of Asia’s Top-10 Women in IT, Dr. Meadows leads a Design Thinking & Innovation Center at a Forbes Top-20 International Business School, creating growth initiatives at the intersection of IT, business strategy, and design. Her research, consulting, and coaching focus on Leadership & Creativity. She co-founded an Advanced Technology Think Tank & Tinker Lab, envisioning the Future of Work (FoW) and Education, applying AI, biometrics, and other advanced technologies to leadership development, team productivity, and group innovation. She holds a Doctorate in Business Administration & IT from Harvard Business School and has over 20 years’ experience in Asia, Europe, and North America as a consultant, coach, entrepreneur, dot-com builder, innovation lab co-founder, and Accenture IT & Business Strategy consultant.

2020 was the year of uncertainty. Countries, organisations, and individuals were all thrown into uncertainty and forced to adapt. As we progress into 2021, there is more stability and resilience, yet no one is certain what the workplace will look like at the end of the year or even in two to three years time.
What will your organization workplace look like? Will you return to a physical office? Will it remain remote? Or will you be able to find a hybrid balance? More importantly, how do you design learning and development programs that can transition from virtual to hybrid to physical?
Kwong will share “learning principles” that helped Own The Room and it’s clients transition from physical trainings to virtual trainings, but will also guide them into the future, regardless of what form the workplace takes.

Kwong Yue Yang works with companies from different cultures, countries, and industries to improve workplace efficiency and productivity through better communications. Clients he’s worked with include Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Salesforce, Siemens, CBRE, Mercer and Maersk.

In this session, Roby will discuss Sinar Mas Land’s L&D strategy on engaging employees starting from the onboarding process, into the development of the employee’s paths in L&D to ensure they are engaged and productive, and promotions in the organization through targeted learning practices. Roby will also showcase the learning tools Sinar Mas Land uses, share some insights on the challenges he faced as an L&D Leader and tips on how to transform these challenges into opportunities including and how these practices provided positive impacts on employees.

Roby is a HR Professional with more than 14 years of working experiences in various industries for both multinational as well as large local conglomerates. He started his career as a Head Hunter back in 2006 in an Executive Recruitment Firm to become the Head of Recruitment in fortune 500 company. Aside from recruitment, he is also experience in handling the development strategy for Management Trainee as well as Managerial Development Program in both recruiting and program development. Since 2018, he joined Sinar Mas Land (the largest property developer company in Indonesia). His current role is as the Head of Learning and Development.

Jean will be sharing about Shopee’s incredible journey of growth as a proud homegrown Singaporean company over the past five years, and the household name’s commitment to investing and nurturing a steadfast pipeline of local tech talent, which in turn translates into supporting an extensive network of users, partners, sellers and the overarching e-commerce community. Come find out more about Shopee’s talent development strategy with employee experience and culture at the forefront of it all!

As Regional People team at Shopee, Jean oversees the company’s talent acquisition, learning & development, and employee engagement strategy across the region. She taps on her skills and knowledge in consulting, design thinking, psychology, organisational development & program development, to attract talent and engage Shopee employees. Jean holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences, Psychology from the National University of Singapore. She also graduated summa cum laude with a Masters in Psychology from the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The future of learning is “Flash or Invisible Learning” – we may not have a Learning and Development function in the company anymore. Flash learning is a super small bite size learning using personalized learning (AI) technology. Invisible learning on the other hand, are all learnings that are embedded in the flow of everything e.g. work and life. In my opinion, the future of learning no longer focuses on the skill, instead will heavily focus on business performance or career growth. Join me on my session and understand my thoughts as the conversations that I will have with the top management in the future will be entirely different



Justin is the Director of Strategic accounts at Skillsoft (Asia), a market leading cloud-based learning and talent management solutions provider. For over 10 years, he has been working closely with senior executives across Management, HR, Operations and IT – helping them optimise people, time, resources and performance.
Passionate about providing on-demand digital programs that deliver strategic value, through enabling scalable learning at any time, any place and for any need.

A high-level overview of the Degreed Functionality to upskill your workforce

An Intelligent Solutions expert with 15+ years in improving and developing products and processes based on customer requirements and trends in the market. A comprehensive understanding of the education and edtech landscape, helping organisations understand the value of skills & learning and unlocking their digital transformations.


Andrea is an Education Researcher with a PhD in Educational Sciences from the Université de Lille. She has a special interest in educational technologies and competency building in collaborative and social learning environments. She also has 10 years of experience in higher education and corporate L&D with NC State University, the University of Technology of Compiegne, the University of Lille, Ubisoft and Danone. She currently serves as a Learning Strategist at EdCast where she supports organizations in building better and more effective learning experiences for their employees. Yes, her hair is that color on purpose.


With over 16 years of experience in the IT Industry, including 15 years of Pre-Sales, Project Management, Implementation, Consulting, Product Marketing in HR / Payroll domain in On-Premise / Cloud platform, worked with customers in multiple sectors like such as education, banking and Government sectors in Asia. Result-driven and dedicated Pre Sales consultant with an extensive experience in providing professional services, developing sales collaterals, and making sales proposals.


Georgina is a passionate about educational technology and its ability to effectively share knowledge and transform organisations.
This passion is coupled with an advocacy for using best learning practices to empower people to reach their potential. Georgina works closely with clients to ensure their vision for learning and development is realised through the use of technology.


Kwong Yue Yang works with companies from different cultures, countries, and industries to improve workplace efficiency and productivity through better communications. Clients he’s worked with include Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Salesforce, Siemens, CBRE, Mercer and Maersk.
