Giving Back To Society With The Next Generation

May 25, 2022

Meet Ms Ong Wee Wah, a Singapore Polytechnic Alumna with a strong passion of giving back to society.

Having graduated in 1986 with a Diploma in Chemical Process Technology, Ms Ong Wee Wah is now the founder of her own company, W2 Industrial Services Hub. Besides serving her valued customers and ensuring that their needs and expectations are always met, she aims to create a company culture of generosity and kindness. With this, she ensures that giving back to society is inculcated in every employee of her company. Hear from Ms Ong Wee Wah as she shares fond memories from her time at SP and how her experiences have shaped her to be the person she is today.

Community work during school

During her days as an SP student, she was part of SP’s Welfare Services Club (WSC), where she volunteered for the Singapore Children’s Society every weekend. Whenever she had any free time, she would also go the extra mile to provide additional lessons at HDB void decks for underprivileged children.

“I’m very thankful to my good friend who introduced me to the WSC. One of the greatest satisfactions I had was being a member of WSC at SP. We had many volunteers at that point in time, and together, we put our hearts into bringing love and care to other people. I think that this beautiful experience has helped me become a better person,” shared Ms Ong. “Money cannot buy the joy I experienced during my time volunteering at SP’s WSC. In fact, it is this sense of purpose and community that inculcated in me the values of giving back, and these are values that I still hold dearly to my heart. I am grateful for all the life lessons I have picked up during my younger days at SP and they will remain as some of the fondest memories I have.”

“I remember being an emcee at one of the WSC events—the Mooncake Festival celebration—which required me to speak Teochew for the first time. Being unfamiliar with Teochew at that time, I had to write out my lines in Chinese first and ask my father to translate it for me. I then practiced it diligently and on the day of the event, I was so happy to see the old folks who attended the event smiling as they could understand their very own native Teochew. That was truly memorable. The joy from volunteering is priceless and everlasting, something that money cannot buy.”

Founding W2 on the right values

When Ms Ong founded W2 in 2007, she focused on building a strong foundation of values in her company. “While having proper education and technical skills are important aspects in the industry, having the right values to direct us towards our goals is equally crucial.”

“I think the values of Kindness, Confidence, Passion in Giving, Leadership and Teamwork are important attributes that I inculcate in all my staff at W2. Even though W2 has faced lots of challenges and obstacles over the years, it is this strong, unbreakable team spirit that helped us overcome every one of them. Everyone in W2 takes the initiative to help one another and that’s how the company grows.”

“Building a strong foundation of trust within the team is also crucial. I dedicated a lot of resources on annual team-building events. We also engaged an external vendor to conduct an Enneagram Test for all my staff, and this test was used to better understand the different personalities within the team.”

Supporting the next generation

With her years of experience, Ms Ong has also been acting as a mentor towards SP students in their journey to becoming young leaders and professionals and to realize their own potential based on what they are best in. She has been supporting students from the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE) by leading industrial projects and offering internship positions for SP students at her company.

“I’ve always been a strong believer of knowledge-sharing, so I offer internship positions to students who demonstrate a high willingness to learn. I want to see them grow and pick up real-world competencies that are difficult to simulate in the classroom,” shared Ms Ong. “I also award them with book prizes to recognize their efforts and aspirations. I strongly believe that even though they still have a long journey ahead of them, as employers, we should offer constructive feedback to help them excel and ensure they are relevant and attuned to the real world.”

Helping out during the pandemic

When COVID-19 hit Singapore, W2 was one of the companies that supplied Autosamplers to the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) wastewater surveillance programme, which was a part of a non-intrusive strategy for monitoring COVID-19 transmission. As part of the programme, NEA implemented automated solutions which includes the Autosampler Live Monitoring System (ALMS), a remote monitoring and cloud-based platform for live monitoring of wastewater sampling.

As a result of the collaboration between SP and W2, INNO2 Cloud Platform System was developed for this major NEA project. It was even showcased by NEA in the recent CleanEnviro Summit (CESG), which was held in conjunction with Singapore International Water Week.

Ms Ong explained, “The wastewater surveillance provides objective information of COVID-19 spread, all this without the use of prevailing clinical test protocols. This testing of extracted wastewater increases the surveillance levels of the disease spread and provides early detection of the virus especially at high-density living premises. It also assists in providing the data for the health ministry’s case investigation. We hope that this product can also benefit the rest of the world. We believe that this is for a good cause and is definitely something that SP should take pride in.”

“I was very blessed that I have had SP lecturers and the Student Team on the project with me. In fact, Ms Nadhirah Insyirah, one of the students from this award-winning project, has progressed to become a full-time member of our W2 team. I’m really looking forward to a long-lasting relationship with SP for innovations that impact the community.”

Thus far, as a result of these various collaboration between W2 Industrial Services Hub and SP, the following awards have been won:

1. Awarded to Singapore Polytechnic: Ministry of Education Translational R&D and Innovation Fund (TIF) Grant Call 2022

Project Name: Development of Predictive Maintenance and Intelligent Alert system for Cloud-Based Waste Water Samplers during a pandemic for cluster surveillance

2. Awarded to the Student Team from School of EEE: the prestigious Lee Hsien Loong Interactive Digital Media Smart Nation Award 2019

Project Name: Smart Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Gas Detection and SMS Alerting System

Words of advice

When asked what advice she has for graduating students, Ms Ong replied, “In life, to err is human but it is important to reflect on our own mistakes and learn from it. Go with the flow and look at things positively, even if these tasks may seem impossible and beyond our control. Always approach challenges or problems with a positive mindset. Positive energy begets positive outcomes and negative energy such as anger, complaint, stress, etc. will bring you nowhere. Do good, be good, stay positive and never give up no matter what happens. With these attributes, you will find yourself venturing into a wonderful journey of success and bliss in life.”