Inaugural mentorship programme

In May 2021, Service Design Network Singapore Chapter (SDNSG) launched the first wave of our inaugural mentorship programme with 12 esteemed service design experts and aspiring service designers.

Mentors meeting
Mentors meeting

The SDNSG Mentorship programme is a 12 weeks mentee-led initiative to support aspiring service designers through holistic mentoring in honing their service design skills and knowledge. We seek to enable practitioners to influence and execute service design practices within their organisation and maintain a vibrant community for collaboration and employment opportunities in Singapore.

I learnt a lot from my mentor during this programme. At the start, we sat down to discuss my goals and what I wanted to achieve. My mentor outlined how he could help me and some resources and tools to consider to push myself to become better. - Amelia Ho, Tan Tock Seng Hospital

First session by Gary Lim (Mentor) and Amelia Ho (Mentee)
First session by Gary Lim (Mentor) and Amelia Ho (Mentee)

Every mentoring pair are unique, and so are the mentees' objectives. As a mentee-led engagement, we as mentors would guide and ensure we understand and align with the mentee's needs.

When I showed my mentor a list of questions that I had written for an upcoming interview that I was going to, he told me that my questions were too technical and would have been challenging to use to draw out stories from the participants. As an engineer by training, this was something that blew my mind. It was such a simple thing to pick up on, but it was something that I had not realized before. - Amelia Ho, Tan Tock Seng Hospital

While the sessions were typically casual and conversational, we strive to provide actionable feedback for the mentees. Examples such as past works and experiences supplement the learning.


Paying it forward and giving back to enable our fellow practitioners to strive and succeed is why we do what we do here. For service design to take roots and flourish in the community, we need to lend a helping hand. And we will continue to do so. Watch this space for more stories from the SDNSG Mentorship programme!

Gary Lim
Gary Lim - Senior Service Designer

Gary is currently a Senior Service Designer with KONE WORX (part of KONE) and a founding member of SDNSG. Previously, he has worked at BCG Platinion (part of Boston Consulting Group) and IBM iX (part of IBM).

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