> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.ai.gov.sg/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Stewarding What Was Entrusted - URL: https://blog.ai.gov.sg/stewarding-what-was-entrusted/ - Published: 2026-09-04T11:05:08.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-04T11:05:08.000Z - Description: No Forward-Deployed Team really starts from zero, every achievement begins with a foundation laid by someone before us. Looking back on my journey, I realise what I inherited matters just as much as what I've accomplished. - Author: Lois Ji - Tags: The People ### **It Starts with Receiving, Not Leading** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ca/f5/caf570e4-5b80-4fc2-b4c8-0c544c2ce19f/content/images/2026/09/feature_image_1-1.png) Generated with ChatGPT, symbolic, reflecting stewardship as something carefully handed over rather than simply possessed. Looking back over the past four years, I've realised that none of the most important things I carry today were written in my job description. I joined GovTech as a Data Scientist, an individual contributor in the Data Science and AI Division (DSAID) Forward-Deployed Team (FDT), but I was entrusted with so much more. FDTs are GovTech’s model for specialised data science and AI expertise to be deployed within government agencies. In recent years where AI has taken the world by storm, we have been called to support agencies' AI transformation journey. To do so, we aim to 1. Deliver high-impact data analytics use cases; 2. Advocate and accelerate agency adoption of data and advanced analytics; 3. Provide capability development and knowledge transfer to agency partners in the area of Data Science and AI. We have over 50 data scientists and engineers embedded across 8 government agencies today, working on real-world problems ranging from rigorous statistical policy reviews to cutting-edge AI agent application development. The idea is simple: sit where the problem lives, build trust and let capability transfer happen alongside delivery. My journey started when I was assigned to Skillsfuture Singapore (SSG) FDT in 2022, where we had a team of three passionate data scientists and engineers. The following year, the team doubled in size and became the largest FDT at that time, as agency partners entrusted us with more projects and innovative ideas. By mid-2026, the team expanded once again from 6 to 8 as SSG and WSG merged to form the new Skills & Workforce Development Agency (SWDA). During these 4 years, **I went from delivering impactful data science projects to defining meaningful problems that can be solved by data science and AI.** ### Data Science & AI Capability Building One of the more memorable projects I worked on back in 2022 was the Skills Extraction project, where I developed the first version of the information extractor based on Natural Language Processing techniques. The business problem was clear - the analytics team needed a programmatic, scalable and efficient way to sieve out skills entities from a large volume of training courses and job posting data. Before LLMs became a thing, NLP was king, and behind many production NLP models, regex quietly did a lot of the heavy lifting. The first skills extraction model was semi-rule based and founded on a set of business rules which helped with the Skills Framework alignment. It wasn’t the most sophisticated model, but it did the job, and enabled years of training courses and job posting data to be analysed for the skills they delivered and demanded. This brought about new possibilities how data analytics and report writing was done in SSG, by reducing the agency’s dependency on external data sources and blackbox analysis published by third-parties. For the first time, SSG was able to share the detailed numbers and in-house analytics methodology with her readers. The satisfaction it brought me fueled my desire to see more of such changes, in how data science can impact the way we serve the public. As a forward-deployed data scientist, my work doesn’t stop at creating innovative solutions. The team continued to push the boundary on what was possible within the Government Commercial Cloud (GCC) environment, and became the first FDT to deploy an end-to-end skills extractor model MLOps workflow in GCC (credits to Yee Sen and Raymond Harris for pioneering this work and charting new grounds). Additionally, we had the opportunity to partner professional teams from leading technology companies and did a week-long Build Lab with them. As a data scientist, **I received the space to innovate and the resource to experiment and learn-by-doing.** ### AI Community Building Many would agree that some of the key ingredients to team-level success is trust. In the second year on the team, I received trust. I was entrusted with more mission-critical projects to drive, and given accountabilities to answer for. I was put in charge of setting up the AI community in SSG in late 2023, to prepare and ready the agency for AI adoption at work. That’s when the SSG AI Leap (SAIL) initiative became my “work baby”, and how I came to experience programme-level stewardship from agency senior management. Fast forward to today, SAIL has evolved into SWDA AI Leap. It’s no longer just a community, but also an online portal, a suite of AI capabilities, and a team that supports Responsible AI development and adoption across all business divisions in SWDA. It was the collective effort from the team and agency stakeholders that completed the mission, but more importantly, **it was the power of team stewardship that provided direction, meaning and resources to the mission**. ### Team Building The first three years passed really quickly, and that's usually the case when you are having fun and purpose at work - winning hackathons, attending overseas conferences, getting promotion, travelling overseas and doing food hunts together, amongst others. On the surface, we had a great three years of teamwork, nothing really changed within the team, but it was almost too subtle as I received greater ownership to drive the tasks and outcomes. None of those things came with a formal handover, yet they each played a crucial part in shaping how I think, react, manage, and eventually, lead the new team now. Looking back, the responsibility began long before I was given the team lead title, and started with the investments my former lead Leo and the team put in me since day one. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ca/f5/caf570e4-5b80-4fc2-b4c8-0c544c2ce19f/content/images/2026/09/data-src-image-5c5e2158-a2bd-4210-b019-3ae30c56225d.jpeg) **The SSG FDT, from left to right: Ale, Wang Cong, Raymond Harris (second row), Vincent, Leo (second row), Me, Sarah* ### **Inheriting Stewardship** Last year, many things began to change. Somewhere in the middle of all the changes, stewardship took on a new meaning as I became responsible for not just projects, but for people. Working on technical challenges suddenly felt less vexing when I had to start making strategic arrangements for the team - prioritising work streams and whitespace opportunities, assigning projects, allocating scarce resources, managing stakeholders expectations and negotiating delivery timelines. > **I was challenged at every turn, to delegate out the work I was so familiar and comfortable with, while taking on new and ambiguous tasks.** Little did I know that this is the rite of passage that every individual contributor needs to go through, as they mature into a team steward. Adding to the challenges, I also had to put together a brand new team, with the original SSG FDT members rotating to other positions except for me. In a world where change is the only constant, what anchored me were the lessons on stewardship and the valuable FDT inheritance I got from Leo and the ones before him... Being a new team lead, with a new team in a newly formed organisation, exploring new stakeholder relationships and new AI technology daily, the team found strength in embracing: - Curiosity that keeps us learning and relevant - Humility that reminds us to always leave space for the unknowns - Sense of ownership that compels us to focus on the outcome rather than the tasks - Standards of excellence that push us beyond just "good enough" These are the hallmarks of the FDT, and they are not preserved in documentation or PowerPoint decks, they are observed, practiced, and passed on. The people may have come and gone, teams may change, but the professional excellence and passion continue regardless of which work stream we get deployed to. Not by default, but through intentional and careful cultivating of the team. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ca/f5/caf570e4-5b80-4fc2-b4c8-0c544c2ce19f/content/images/2026/09/data-src-image-b828423e-1f23-419f-9a17-1c1b7fb53438.jpeg) **Half of the SWDA FDT, from left to right: Me, Aayush, Clare, Tianyu, Raymond Low* ### **Becoming the Team Steward** I used to steward projects, but now I steward people. The new responsibility was both foreign and familiar at the same time - my role changed, but the principles I was taught didn't. It isn't just about doing the work planning and direction setting at the end of the year. It's also about dynamically steering the team's portfolio in uncertain times. As organisation priorities shift and team compositions change, we conduct more frequent team discussions on "no regret moves". Project decisions are made and owned at the team level to ensure nobody gets left behind due to information asymmetry. Every FDT officer is empowered to be the steward of their work streams as well. 12 months ago, I was both anxious and doubtful about whether I could lead the team forward. So I'm really grateful for everyone (both GovTech and agency stakeholders) who entrusted me. I have come to learn that promotions are not just rewards and a higher position on the corporate ladder. It's an expansion of responsible management of people and outcomes, done not through grand gestures, but small, consistent daily practices. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ca/f5/caf570e4-5b80-4fc2-b4c8-0c544c2ce19f/content/images/2026/09/data-src-image-7aa176fe-3c25-45e6-a8ad-1d6a8a962506.jpeg) **Combined SWDA and FDT officers* ### **Passing it On** Lastly, I want to end off by sharing that when I first drafted this article it was about me, my career and my achievements. But the more I reflected on my journey as an FDT officer, the more I realised that there is no “I” without the “we”. None of us truly start from zero. Every opportunity we receive, every lesson we learn, and every success we celebrate is built on the shoulders of those who came before us. That, to me, is what leadership really means. Everyone on the team is a steward in their own way. My role is not simply to guide the team, but to bring out that characteristic in each person through the countless small moments of our daily work—sharing context, building trust, setting high standards, and creating opportunities for others to grow. These get passed on quietly, the same way it reached me. Ultimately it's not about being remembered but making sure what you received outlives you.