Hey, it's Bernie!

I've built my career on the wave of digital transformation. When I came back to Singapore in 2008, she was just figuring out what social media and Web 2.0 was. Me back then, hell, I was all about digital and social media, and very easily I was able to help companies migrate their systems, not sitting in IT, but in marketing and communications. Everywhere I went, it was convincing leadership about what SEO was, what content marketing was, what social media accounts to create, what is email marketing, what is inbound marketing, is cloud hosting safe, the list goes on. As I write this I could feel an adrenaline rush while remembering those moments, it was definitely an exciting time. I went from a web developer to creating a small agency, and then to the client-side, working with the agencies to scale digital and social media.

Fast forward to 2020, Singapore was now well-versed in digital and social media. I could feel the wave starting to subside. I've led the launch of two critical systems – a fully rebranded website, and a fully migrated intranet for SUSS, I was fatigued, jaded and bored. Somewhere along the way I had this goal of becoming a Chief Marketing Officer, but then I realized that my passion lies in figuring things out, solving problems, experimenting, building and launching. I don't want to build people, I want to build systems.

Then I got this fancy idea to launch a business and a mobile app for the urban farming community. So I quit my job, left corporate life, and went solo – started Bernie Studio. After a few months I realized that the idea just didn't have legs, I also wasn't able to prototype anything even though I swore to build it with no-code or low code. The business model was bad from the start. So I stopped. I didn't want to go back doing what I initially ran away from, so I spent the next few years pivoting. First I took a diploma in Urban Agriculture Technology, hoping that in understanding more about the landscape and topic I could get back to pursue my initial business idea. Then I started an online business with a friend, which gained quite good traction, I was surprised that we were able to make it a profitable business. It definitely gave me a sense of satisfaction based on my personality and motivations. I continued to potter on with various different projects that I was familiar with – content creation and marketing. I built up two niche YouTube channels, which taught me the discipline of publish frequency and sticking to a formula. On the agriculture front I realized my passion lies in insect farming, but once again, the market is not ready. So I started Bernie's Bug Farm as an experiment on producing high quality frass as well as eating mealworms as an alternative nutritional source.

I was getting bored by now without something big enough for me to build. Then circa 2023, after watching the keynote by Sam Altman and about OpenAI, I started thinking about AI and how it was going to impact our future. I tried using ChatGPT, like the rest of us, and wasn't really fully utilizing its capabilities. Early 2025, I had a nasty road accident with a car (I was riding an e-bike), which had me down in recovering for about 2 whole months before I was able to be back fully functioning. 2025 became my pivoting point. It was also the year I graduated from my diploma program. I slowed down content creating on my e-bike, and did more research into how I want to utilize my newly acquired agriculture cred. Nothing much hit, except for my bug farm, and freelancing as a workshop instructor for pre-school, primary and secondary school kids, which I quite enjoyed. It was nice, but I wasn't building, I was just doing. I was bored again.

Late last year, I stumbled upon a course from NTU that offered a certificate in Data Science and AI, which also offered career transition opportunities. After attending the briefing, I signed up. I thought, ok so now I have to really dig deeper into the AI stuff. lol, AI stuff. Just shy of 2 months ago I didn't know any of the terms used in the industry. Now, I understand the landscape, the connections between the different layers, and where it's heading. Not completely, but it's a start. Guys, I'm feeling all tingly again, the same feeling I had in 2008 with digital and social media. Excited about AI, but also aware of the implications and challenges to the environment, to people, and all that. This is what excites me – being part of a wave of transformation. I want to build stuff again. I don't have the full suite of skillset yet, but I now can “partner” with AI to help me get there faster than ever before. I literally spent January 2026 ramping up. My goal for this year is to complete up to 50 online courses, finish up the 6-month NTU course, while at the same time look out for apprenticeships, mentorships and just build stuff with AI tech. That, together with my bug farm, we can hopefully find the ultimate solution for food resilience in Singapore.

Time to ride.

Follow my blog if you are interested. Thanks for reading.