Museums SG

I just started a voluntary, pro bono advisory position at the National Heritage Board. It’s called the Digital Advisory Panel to help guide the NHB in their digital transformation and innovation journey.

It’s pretty exciting to be learning about this new area of the government – heritage.

I’ve never done any projects for it, but heritage is something that I do feel for. It was the fear of losing our hawker food heritage that compelled me to start Dabao Dash during the pandemic, to help hawkers pivot to food delivery. I’m passionate about heritage mooncakes and track them down every year when the festival comes. I hate that the institutions that I grew up in—my schools, public places—are being torn down for renewal and economic benefit. I often wish to create a tech for good project that’s heritage-related.

So there.

This is an opportunity that’s coming at the right time.

So while that advisory position is more about advising, I’m also feeling inspired to build something on my own. Something ground-up, something related to tech for good. What should I build? Some ideas:

• A directory of museums in Singapore. Surprised there isn’t one!
• A site where I can capture my old memories of places that I grew up with, especially my old schools. Could this be a VR360 kind of tour? A Vision Pro app? Or just curated images hosted on a site?
• I always wanted to make a heritage mooncake-related site. But not sure what. A directory seems simple enough but feels like there won’t be much items in the directory, with more and more shutting down.
• Something related to local hawker food. Like, something simple like all the food stalls and what they sell at my local town’s hawker centre at Bedok Central. Something close to heart. Doesn’t have to be massive or ambitious.

What else?