SINGAPORE—May 29, 2025 — The National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NIE NTU, Singapore) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), have signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to accelerate educational innovation and advance research in educational technology.
This partnership will empower NIE staff and students to transform ideas into functional prototypes, enhancing learning and addressing real-world issues. It will also provide learning opportunities for Singapore’s educators to deepen their competencies in cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and emerging digital tools. A key initiative under this MOU is the launch of the Technology for Education Centre (TEC), a new innovation hub located on the NIE’s campus that will drive digital transformation in education.
This collaboration paves the way for an innovative journey in Singapore’s education system—one that reimagines what it means to teach and learn in the age of intelligent technologies. It envisions a future where every educator is empowered with AI-driven insights, classrooms transform into agile experimentation of educational innovations, and research and practice converge to fuel educational breakthroughs. By focusing on three strategic priorities—preparing future-ready educators, accelerating applied innovation, and positioning Singapore as a global beacon of educational technology excellence—this partnership signals a collective ambition to shape not just the future of teaching but the future of learning itself.
Together, AWS and the NIE aim to collaborate on advancing applied innovation in education and supporting educators in utilising technology to address real-world challenges. The partnership will facilitate the development of new ideas and digital competencies in response to the evolving needs across academia, industry, schools, and beyond. This aligns with the NIE’s mission to develop future-ready educators, reinforcing the Values, Skills, and Knowledge (V3SK) framework that forms the cornerstone of Singapore’s teacher education model.
Key highlights of the collaboration include:
1. Establishment of the Technology for Education Centre (TEC)
Creation of the TEC on the NIE’s campus provides frictionless access for staff and students to co-develop applied education technologies through prototyping, testing, and industry collaboration.
2. Cloud-focused learning initiatives
Learning initiatives, including AWS Skill Builder and cloud-based simulations, will provide NIE staff and educators with opportunities to strengthen their competencies in cloud technologies and the use of AI technologies in teaching, learning, and research.
3. Advancing applied research in AI, data analytics, and emerging technologies
Joint research initiatives will enable the NIE researchers to go deeper into data-driven approaches to education, translating AI and analytics into actionable insights that improve teaching practices, learner outcomes, and policy development.
4. Service-learning projects creating real-world impact
By leveraging AWS’s generative AI (Gen AI) technologies such as Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Q Developer, student-led service-learning initiatives will design and deploy practical solutions that address real-world issues, fostering student agency and problem-solving skills, and a deeper sense of community responsibility.
5. Experiential platforms to spark student innovation with AI
Through hands-on workshops, hackathons, and technology showcases, students and staff will explore real-world applications of AI for education — creating prototypes, testing ideas, and developing the confidence and creativity needed to become future-ready innovators.
The Technology for Education Centre
Located on the NIE's campus, the TEC will be a collaborative hub where educators, students, researchers, and staff can develop pedagogically sound and ethically responsible technological solutions for education with AWS and industry partners. The Centre will provide a secure environment to explore state-of-the-art technologies and applications, while also allowing industry partners to test their technologies in educational settings. With dedicated prototyping zones, the TEC aims to shape the future of technology-enhanced teaching and learning guided by sound learning principles.
Advancing Singapore's AI-Ready Education Ecosystem
This collaboration exemplifies educational innovation as a core pillar of the NIE’s AI for Education strategy under AIEd@NIE, aligning with Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0’s (NAIS 2.0) vision for building an AI-ready workforce. It also aligns with both the Research and Development (R&D) and Community pillars of AWS’s AI Spring Singapore initiative, which seeks to accelerate the adoption of AI by nurturing community development and advancing research in AI technologies and their applications.
Professor Liu Woon Chia, NIE Director, said, “This strategic partnership signifies a shared commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technologies to transform education in Singapore. Together, we are transforming how teachers teach, how students learn, and how research shapes real-world policy and practice.”
Elsie Tan, Country Manager, Worldwide Public Sector, Singapore at AWS, added, "Educators shape our future workforce. By combining the NIE's expertise with AWS's AI technologies in experiential learning, we're supporting Singapore's Smart Nation vision to develop digitally - empowered teachers ready to address tomorrow's challenges with confidence and digital fluency."
New Pathways to Educational Excellence
This partnership will also drive applied innovation in education by focusing on the practical use of cloud and emerging technologies in teaching and learning environments. As part of the collaboration, AWS will provide access to a range of digital learning resources, including self-paced courses and training programmes such as AWS Skill Builder. These resources are designed to enhance the existing digital curriculum at the NIE and strengthen competencies in cloud technologies among educators and NIE staff.
Future initiatives include co-hosted hackathons, hands-on workshops and student-led roundtables or forums discussing ethical considerations of AI in education. Discussion topics include biases, surveillance, data privacy, and human-AI collaboration. The future initiatives will provide platforms for educators, researchers, and industry to experiment with and adopt new education technologies.
Through this partnership, the NIE reaffirms its position as a global leader in educational transformation, shaping the future of learning in the ASEAN region and beyond. This collaboration is not just about today’s advancements but about continuously (re)defining the possibilities of 21st-century education.
Pillars of Partnerships between NIE and AWS
Innovation and Research
The Technology for Education Centre (TEC) will anchor the NIE’s efforts to foster the creation and development of innovative educational technologies and solutions. This pillar includes activities such as workshops for brainstorming ideas, prototyping new solutions, and testing these innovations in real-world educational settings. Serving as a nexus for NIE staff, educators, students, and industry partners, the TEC will drive joint initiatives in data analytics, AI, and emerging technologies. These efforts aim to produce scalable, research-informed solutions to real-world educational challenges. The Centre will offer dedicated environments for prototype testing, enabling agile development and real-time feedback from authentic educational contexts.
Examples of NIE-AWS partnership projects that demonstrate the transformative role of technology include AppleTree, an online platform designed to enhance collaborative argumentation. It enables students to engage in structured discourse through visual mapping, embedded collaboration scripts, and real-time learning analytics—all powered by AWS Cloud to ensure scalability and seamless performance. Similarly, CoVAAPD, a web-based video annotation and analytics system for Physical Education, leverages AWS solutions to support asynchronous mentoring, collaborative reflection, and data-driven professional development.
As part of the collaboration, NIE and AWS will jointly drive the annual development of at least three innovative education technology projects, with minimally one scaled for broader use annually.
Hands-on Learning and Experiential Opportunities
The NIE-AWS partnership also supports a suite of initiatives that engage students and educators in collaborative and experiential learning. This pillar aims to stimulate creativity and problem-solving skills, allowing participants to work on real educational challenges.
A key example is the AI in Education Innovation Challenge, a flagship competition designed to inspire the NIE students to design, develop, and deploy AI-powered tools that address real-world educational challenges. The Challenge is structured in two stages. The first focuses on ideation, where student teams are mentored by the NIE faculty and AWS AI experts through workshops and guest lectures to explore creative and responsible uses of AI in education. The second stage emphasises hands-on development, with shortlisted teams refining their concepts into functional prototypes using cloud credits and specialised training. The challenge culminates in a live showcase, where teams present their solutions to a panel of judges and compete for awards based on innovation, usability, and educational impact.
Community Impact and Engagement
At the heart of the NIE-AWS collaboration is a shared commitment to social responsibility and inclusive education. The partnership places strong emphasis on addressing real-world educational challenges through service-learning projects that empower the NIE student teachers to co-develop meaningful solutions for the communities they serve. A key initiative is the integration of AWS’s technical expertise into GESL (Group Endeavours in Service Learning), NIE’s flagship community-engagement programme. Every NIE student teacher participates in GESL, working collaboratively to identify needs and deliver impactful educational interventions.
Through this collaboration, AWS AI specialists and NIE GESL facilitators co-guide student teams from solution design to prototyping and implementation. Interactive workshops introduce participants to cloud-based solutions such as Amazon SageMaker and AWS Lambda, enabling them to design and deploy technology solutions tailored for diverse learning communities—including learners with special needs. These efforts are complemented by demonstration talks and real-world case studies, fostering critical awareness of ethical AI use and inspiring students to adopt technology responsibly. By merging technological innovation with service learning, the partnership enhances teaching and learning experiences while promoting equity, empathy, and inclusive education across Singapore’s learning landscape.
Technology Integration and Digital Competencies
As part of the collaboration, NIE and AWS will jointly enhance the existing efforts to effectively integrate technology into teaching and learning practices. This pillar also encompasses programmes to enhance staff and educators’ digital competencies, and initiatives that leverage AI and other emerging technologies to improve educational outcomes.
For example, access to AWS cloud services will be integrated into the NIE’s Digital Enablement programme and embedded within teacher education to deepen the use of cloud computing and AI across educational contexts. Learning initiatives, including AWS Skill Builder and cloud-based simulations, will provide NIE staff and educators with opportunities to strengthen their competencies in cloud technologies and the use of AI technologies in teaching, learning, and research.
Another example of a learning initiative is the upcoming AI in Education Innovation Workshop in June 2025, jointly organised by AWS and NIE’s AI in Education Chapter, a pioneering student-led initiative. Entirely run by student teachers, the Chapter champions AI literacy and innovation in teaching by creating platforms for experimentation and dialogue. The June workshop will empower the NIE students to engage directly with cloud-based AI tools, co-design educational applications, and explore responsible and impactful uses of AI in the classroom. This collaboration exemplifies how TEC will nurture a vibrant, ground-up culture of innovation—where student leadership, research, and industry expertise converge to shape the future of learning.
The Technology for Education Centre (TEC) Experience
The Technology for Education Centre (TEC) serves as the NIE’s collaborative playground for innovation, where emerging technologies such as AI, cloud computing, data analytics, and immersive tools come to life. Designed as a future-ready space, the TEC invites all members of the NIE community—students, faculty, researchers, and professional staff—to engage in hands-on experimentation, solution building, and collaborative discovery.
Student Teachers: Learning by Innovating
For the NIE student teachers, the TEC provides a dynamic environment to experience and explore the practical integration of AI and digital tools into teaching. Through initiatives like the AI in Education Innovation Workshop and Hackathons, student teachers can ideate, prototype, and refine tech-enabled teaching tools. With access to AWS cloud services, pedagogical mentorship from the NIE faculty, and technical guidance from AWS experts, students gain invaluable experience applying design thinking, ethical AI practices, and technical fluency—skills essential to shaping future classrooms. The TEC nurtures a sense of agency, encouraging students to test bold ideas and evolve from passive learners into active innovators.
Faculty: Advancing Pedagogy through Technology
Faculty members use the TEC as a launchpad for exploring new educational approaches supported by technology. Whether piloting blended learning models, testing intelligent tutoring systems, or co-developing educational prototypes, the TEC allows educators to ground their teaching innovation in both practice and evidence. The Centre also supports faculty-led initiatives in digital fluency and provides an authentic testbed to study the impact of solutions before broader rollout. The TEC empowers NIE faculty to stay at the forefront of educational innovation and pedagogical transformation.
Professional Staff: Enhancing Productivity through AI, Data and Automation
Professional staff leverage the TEC to experiment with AI-powered solutions aimed at improving operational efficiency and service excellence. From automating administrative workflows to exploring data-informed decision tools, staff can test and refine practical AI applications that boost productivity across departments. With access to AWS infrastructure and targeted workshops, professional teams can prototype bots, dashboards, and smart systems that enhance institutional agility. The TEC acts as an enabler of digital empowerment, encouraging staff to drive innovation within their functional domains.
Researchers: Bridging Inquiry and Impact
For researchers, the TEC offers an immersive environment to conduct applied research in AI, learning analytics, and emerging educational technologies. The Centre supports the design, testing, and evaluation of prototypes in authentic learning settings, enabling researchers to translate theory into scalable classroom solutions. With access to real-time data, collaborative spaces, and cloud-based tools, the NIE researchers can accelerate their inquiries while co-developing with students, educators, and industry partners. The TEC embodies the institute’s vision to bridge academic excellence with societal impact.