The Challenge: Turning AI Interest into Applied Capability Across Diverse Teams
The Digital and Intelligence Service operates at the leading edge of the digital domain, and this cohort brought together people from a range of functions, from training and curriculum design to plans and policy, data analytics, process documentation, and corporate support such as finance, procurement, and logistics. Leaders recognised that generative and agentic AI could meaningfully support all of this work, but interest alone was not enough. The function needed its people to be able to apply AI confidently and responsibly in their day-to-day roles.
Because the cohort spanned different functions and different levels of AI familiarity, any training had to bring everyone to a shared, applied standard while mapping directly to the specific outputs each group actually produces. It also had to remain relevant to a secure, high-assurance government environment. A generic, off-the-shelf AI course would not have connected to these varied realities, nor to the governance and responsible-use considerations that come with deploying AI inside a defence organisation.
What DIS wanted was a programme that moved beyond awareness into hands-on building, one that let participants design and deploy real workflows using their own professional context, and that treated responsible AI use as a core part of the learning rather than an afterthought.
Why Heicoders Academy: A Trusted, Contextualised Partner
DIS chose Heicoders Academy for the depth and structure of GA100 and its track record of contextualising AI training for demanding public-sector and enterprise organisations. From the first discovery conversations, the Heicoders team focused on tailoring the engagement to the cohort’s operational realities rather than delivering a standard syllabus. The exercises were mapped to the real day-to-day outputs across the group, including designing training and lesson plans, plans and policy work, data analytics such as budget utilisation, writing standard operating procedures and user guides, measuring training effectiveness, and finance, procurement, and logistics tasks.
Microsoft Copilot was included among the tools covered, aligned to the environment the team works in, and one of Heicoders Academy’s more experienced instructors was assigned to adapt pacing and emphasis to the cohort in real time. GA100 also offered the depth DIS was looking for. As an SSG-accredited, WSQ-accredited programme built around real tools and real business scenarios, it gave the function a credible, structured path from foundational prompting all the way through to building and deploying agentic workflows, with responsible AI woven throughout.
Heicoders Academy is Singapore's leading AI-First Skills Accelerator, with over 30,000 learners trained, 4,000+ five-star reviews, and 300+ corporate clients including Changi Airport Group, Marriott International, and Temasek Trust.
The Solution: A Private, Customised GA100 Run for DIS
Heicoders Academy delivered a private, customised run of GA100 exclusively for the DIS team. The programme ran across three full training days on 16, 17 and 21 September 2026, delivered in-person in Singapore for a cohort of 28 participants. Exercises and demonstrations were grounded in the cohort’s actual work, from lesson design and training effectiveness measurement to budget and expenditure analytics, SOP and user guide drafting, and finance, procurement, and logistics workflows. The curriculum progressed deliberately across five core areas:
- Generative AI Basics and Prompt Engineering: How Large Language Models work, key AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini), advanced prompting techniques including chain-of-thought and few-shot prompting, and AI-powered media creation.
- Advanced Workflows and AI Agents: Hands-on lab using Manus AI to build and deploy multi-step automated workflows across 9 real-world business scenarios, including email automation, data analysis, wide research, spreadsheet automation, and slide generation.
- Agentic Workflow Automation with n8n: Building powerful automated pipelines by connecting multiple applications and services to automate common business processes such as data extraction and report generation.
- RAG for Business Data: Learning how to combine AI with the organisation’s internal data to create reliable, factual knowledge bases and secure private AI systems.
- MCP and Managing AI Risk: Applying frameworks for safe, compliant, and ethical AI use in an enterprise setting, culminating in a hands-on Capstone Project where participants applied their full suite of newly acquired skills.
Around the curriculum, Heicoders Academy provided end-to-end wraparound support, from enrolment and registration onto its Student eLearn portal, to handling the government funding administration on behalf of the organisation, coordinating venue logistics, and supporting eligible participants through the WSQ assessment component. This allowed DIS to focus entirely on the learning experience while the operational details were managed for them.
Results: A Full Cohort Trained and Engaged
The engagement brought together a full cohort of 28 DIS participants for the complete three-day programme, giving a meaningful cross-section of the function a shared, hands-on grounding in applied and agentic AI. Throughout the run, participants worked directly with the tools, building and deploying workflows mapped to their own roles rather than simply observing demonstrations.
Engagement across the cohort was strong, and the sessions were well received by both participants and the function’s leads. By the end of the programme, participants had moved from understanding what generative AI can do to actively applying it, with a clearer view of how these capabilities could support their training, analysis, documentation, and corporate support work within a responsible, compliant framework.
What's Next: Extending Applied AI Across the Function
With a first cohort now trained, the foundation is in place for DIS to continue building AI capability across its teams. Heicoders Academy looks forward to supporting the Digital and Intelligence Service on that journey, whether through further cohorts, deeper role-specific applications, or continued advisory support as the function embeds AI into its everyday work.
The DIS run reflects how Heicoders Academy partners with secure, high-assurance organisations: starting from the team’s real operational context, keeping the learning practical and hands-on, and pairing it with the responsible AI practices that these environments require.
