Enhancing Undergraduate Education Through Social Innovation Projects: The Experience of a Young University in Singapore

Authors

Keywords:

applied learning, community engagement, higher education, service-learning, Southeast Asia

Abstract

In this paper, social innovation is used as a catch-all phrase for projects and initiatives by higher education institutions (HEIs) related to community engagement, community-based learning, and service-learning. This paper explores the concept and application of social innovation in higher education, followed by a case study of implementing social innovation projects in a young, applied learning university in Singapore, a discussion of lessons learned, and plans for the near future in enhancing and strengthening its implementation.

Author Biographies

Intan Azura Mokhtar, Singapore Institute of Technology

Intan Azura Mokhtar is an Associate Professor in the Business, Communication and Design Cluster, and Director of the Community Leadership and Social Innovation Centre (CLASIC) at the Singapore Institute of Technology, which is Singapore’s 5th autonomous university that is focused on applied learning.

Intan has more than 20 years of teaching experience, nineteen years of which are at the university level. Intan has taught courses and modules related to social context and change management; social innovation and sustainable development; community, school and change leadership; educational technology; critical inquiry; and information and media literacy, for both Undergraduate and Master’s degree programs, as well as executive programs. Intan has published widely on the above topics and has more than 80 publications to her name.

Intan has been extensively involved in public policy-making in Singapore, having been a legislator and Member of Parliament in the 12th and 13th Parliament of Singapore, and Deputy Chairperson of the Singapore Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Education, as well as a member of the GPCs for Manpower and Transport, from 2011-2020. Intan has been involved in community and social innovation for more than a decade, beginning with community development and social initiatives at the grassroots level, and moving to social innovation as an academic pursuit in SIT.

Intan is a recent recipient of the Fulbright US-ASEAN Visiting Scholar Award 2023-2024, where she spent 2 months at the University of California Berkeley, and 2 months at Brown University, to carry out fieldwork for her project on ‘Success factors for social innovation initiatives in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the US and Southeast Asia’. Intan is also a co-PI in a project on ‘Digital Social Innovation for Sustainable Development in the UAE’, which was awarded the Social Innovation Competition Award by Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Intan can be reached at Intan.Mokhtar@SingaporeTech.edu.sg

Yong Lim Foo, Singapore Institute of Technology

Yong Lim is Associate Provost for Acdemic Programmes and concurrently Associate Professor of Engineering in the Singapore Institute of Technology.

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Published

04/30/2025

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 1 (2025)

Section

Research and Theory

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