The Singapore Tamil Youth Conference (STYC) is a biennial event which throws a spotlight on societal issues impacting the Tamil-speaking youth community. It also provides a platform where youth can brainstorm workable solutions, which are then submitted to Tamil community partners for their consideration. This year’s theme ‘Empowering Youth, Evolving Future’ captures the spirit of innovation and progress which the organisers, NUS Tamil Language Society (NUS TLS), want to emphasise.
“We brought forth a change in the conference structure, to engage delegates on forming solutions along with discussion on pertinent issues,” said STYC 2024’s Chairperson, Preethi Kumaravel (Year 2, Business).
The three-day event held over two weekends on 27 and 28 July, and 3 August engaged 150 delegates, aged 16 to 25, through focus groups, keynote speeches and panel discussions, covering four conference pillars— Art and Culture, Digitech, Health, and Education. Partnering organisations including the Singapore Tamil Society, the Tamils Representative Council, and the SINDA Youth Club attended the conference held at NUS UTown.
The STYC organising committee with Dr Janil Puthucheary, the Guest-of-Honour for STYC’s closing ceremony on 3 August. (Photo: Memento Vision).
STYC’s student committee was heavily involved in planning the conference. Two Academics teams, headed by Subramanian Karthikeyan, (Year 2, Computer Science) and A Vishnu Vardini, (Year 1, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) kickstarted the conference with toolkits on the four pillars and presented their key findings before commencing the panel discussions. Findings were collated over two months from a variety of research study sources and interviews with subject matter experts in Singapore.
Panel discussions featuring industry experts covered four conference pillars in Art and Culture, Digitech, Health, and Education. (Photo: Memento Vision).
Following that, expert panellists for each pillar gave their views on each subtopic through question-and-answer segments. The expert panellists included media personalities like Mr Vadi PVSS and Ms Elakeyaa Selvaraji, and health professionals like Dr Thameem Dheen from NUS.
The organising committee introduced a new competition element to STYC this year to increase the level of participation within the youth delegates. The best two solutions from each pillar were selected to be pitched in front of a panel of industry judges on the final day of the conference.
“We aimed to provide delegates with a thorough understanding of issues surrounding the conference pillars prevailing in the Tamil community. The competition element guides them to think of solutions addressing the issues,” said President of NUS TLS, Sanjay Muthukumaran (Year 3, Business).
The conference was attended by 150 youth delegates and representatives of Tamil community organisations in Singapore. (Photo: Memento Vision).
‘AAZHI’ was an app idea under the Arts & Culture pillar that won the first prize for STYC 2024, walking away with a $2,000 cash prize. The app aimed to bridge budding artists with established artists and talents to promote collaboration.
Muhammad Zafir from the winning team said: “This conference was a really good platform to express our ideas. Apart from that, it's really exciting that our solution is going to be developed and implemented soon."
‘AAZHI’ impressed one of the competition judges, Mr. Rishi Varman, the Founder and CEO of The Shuffle Collective so much that he expressed his wish to work with this winning team to implement their app. He said the app resounded with him as a fellow artist who had to build his creative agency from scratch.
Winners of STYC 2024. (Photo: Memento Vision).
The second prize was another app idea, ‘Singapore Digital Island’, presented under the Digitech pillar, aimed at helping young children learn Tamil with ease. The concept resonated with the judges for its alignment to Singapore’s call to support bilingualism and encourage the continual learning of mother tongue languages.
The third prize winners proposed an initiative named ‘Arusuvai Arokiyasuvai’ (trans. taste is healthy) which aimed to encourage and guide customers to purchase healthy food items at Indian grocery stores.
A total of 51 students were involved in STYC 2024 which includes the main Organising Committee and representatives from NUS Tamil Language Society. (Photo: Memento Vision).
All wining ideas are set to be adopted by STYC’s partnering organisations and implemented in the near future. “STYC 2024 marks a decade since our inaugural conference in 2014. We hope our efforts spark a revolution of ideas and actions through the recommendations made during the conference. The organising committee and I look forward to seeing these ideas implemented and to ensuring that future STYC committees hopefully build on this initiative,” said Preethi Kumaravel.
This commitment to fostering innovation and progress in the Tamil community underscores the enduring legacy of STYC, as it continues to inspire youth and see profound impact in the community.
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