About ESTL

ESTL is short for Experimental Systems and Technology Lab and we were founded as an experimental engineering team in July 2014 by then-Minister for Education Heng Swee Keat and NUS Associate Professor of Computing Science Dr. Ben Leong to push digital transformation in education.

Today, we are a team of 50 (and growing!) that is part of the Information Technology Division of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Government Technology Agency (GovTech). Our team consists of engineers, UX designers, and delivery managers. But what makes us unique is that we also have Education Officers, or EOs for short, who are teachers and are now embedded within the team. EOs provide domain expertise for our projects as they were once on the ground and are closest to the users that our products and services benefit.

Our vision is to create an inter-connected tech ecosystem in MOE that is empowering, effective, and enjoyable for everyone. You can find our vision, mission and values over at our website.

Here at ESTL Lab Notes, we want to demystify our work as the in-house tech development team in MOE. We want to share the what, how, and why of our products, and the people behind them. We want to share our setbacks and successes, and the many difficult challenges that still lie ahead of us. We believe that we learn best when we share, and we want to have an open conversation with anyone who is passionate about improving our education system. Whether you are an engineer, designer, teacher, student, or simply someone curious, we hope there’s something here that excites you. Follow us here on Lab Notes to find out more!