Launched today – ULeap, a mobile learning platform, will be the engine behind UCN that will revolutionise learning for working people.

1. Singapore, 17 November 2017 – The National Trades Union Congress’ (NTUC) e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) aims to forge a lifelong relationship with all working people throughout their lifetime career journey starting from school by bringing Singaporeans into the U Career Network (UCN) ecosystem to help them in jobs, skills development and career progression; enhanced together with e2i’s close ties with the Industry Trade Associations & Chambers (TACs) Network. This interconnected harmony of networks in e2i builds individual connections from their phases as a student, progressing to their first job and subsequent career growth, mid-career switch and right through to retirement.

2. ULeap Learning Network
   ULeap (Learning Enabled Through Active Participation) will be the driving force behind UCN, addressing challenges of learning today for working people. Even with evolution in learning such as micro-learning, attractive subsidies for continuous education and making use of technology to drive learning, challenges still remain. Launching today, ULeap’s mobile learning platform will be a 6-months pilot for working people to acquire new knowledge quickly through short multimedia content, stay up to date on current trending issues and participate in various learning communities to discuss best practices and exchange knowledge.A speed-to-market ecosystem will be created by tapping on the expanding U Career Network (UCN) where Knowledge Partners (e.g. Institutes of Higher Learning, Professional Guilds and Training Providers) and a community of learners learn from each other to deliver bite-sized and just-in-time knowledge to address the immediate needs of the working people.

3. Speed-to-market Ecosystem & Crowdsourced Learning
   Instead of a typical 3 to 6 months time-frame needed for the development of new courses/programme, Knowledge Partners can harness the sharing by the various learning communities to construct just-in-time bite-sized lessons on ULeap to meet current demands. They will also take the roles of moderators and validators in the learning communities

4. Three Key Skills Pillars that deliver just-in-time content in bite-sized pieces
   The content curated by the Knowledge Partners will be organised under three skills pillars – Applied Skills, Professional Skills and Workplace Skills. Each e-learning lesson will take less than 15 minutes and learners can download their content anytime and anywhere as long they have an Internet connection on their mobile devices.The 3 Skills Pillars consist of:
   1. Applied Skills – functional skills and concepts specific to an area of work. Examples include: cybersecurity, workplace health and safety.
   2. Professional Skills – executive skills critical for planning, strategising and business operations. Examples include digital business, entrepreneurship and service excellence.
   3. Workplace Skills – essential skills needed to perform effectively at the workplace such as digital readiness and employability skills.

   Applied Skills will be the first to roll out with trending topics such as Cybersecurity, Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Workplace Health & Safety. Contributing Knowledge Partners include Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), Institute of Technical Education (ITE), NTUC LearningHub, Republic Polytechnic (RP), Singapore Institute of Safety Officers (SISO), Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) and Temasek Polytechnic (TP). NTUC’s OPEC (Oil, Petrochemical, Energy and Chemicals) Cluster and EPME (Electronics and Precision and Machinery Engineering) Cluster have also started to mobilise the working people in their cluster of industries as learners.
   The other two skills pillars will be rolled out by the 1st quarter of 2018 in phases. During the 6 months pilot, ULeap’s learning platform aims to benefit 10,000 working people.

5. Leveraging U Career Network (UCN) and Trade Associations & Chambers (TAC) Network
   ULeap will also leverage the U Career Network (UCN) to bring speed-to-market learning to the working people and activating the pool of industry mentors/career advisors to exchange knowledge in the communities of learning on the mobile platform.With more than 70% of Singaporeans working in Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs), e2i will harness its Industry Trade Associations & Chambers (TACs) Network to upskill working people in these SMEs thus building a lifelong relationship.Mr Gilbert Tan, Chief Executive Officer of e2i said, “There is an urgent need for everyone to have a mind-set change towards learning. With ULeap as the engine behind our U Career Network we can expedite training for working people in tandem with the Industry Transformation Maps. ULeap will be key in unlocking a revolutionary change in the way we see and carry out training. Future of learning will be crowdsourced, bite-sized and just-in-time.”