Digital literacy workshop with getai twist entertains and educates seniors
Ilyas Salim
ABOUT 350 people turned up at Mei Ling Market & Food Centre on Friday (Sep 8) to enjoy a getai performance – and to learn how to make e-payments on their mobile phones at the same time.
The community event concluded a series of five digital literacy roadshows that integrated getai edutainment to better engage the public, especially senior citizens. These were organised by DBS Foundation and POSB to promote digital literacy among senior citizens and hawkers.
For 76-year-old Ricky Lee, who owns a coffee stall at Mei Ling Market & Food Centre, it was his first time attending a digital literacy workshop – an experience that he found “very helpful for seniors like myself”.
The fact that the events are held at hawker centres “makes it very convenient for the seniors”, he said.
“Some customers are not familiar with using DBS PayLah!, so together with my daughter, who helps run the stall, we will guide them and encourage them to use it more frequently,” he added, referring to the bank’s mobile wallet app.
DBS said that the pairing of digital literacy education with getai entertainment was done to improve the learning experience for the digitally less-savvy – especially seniors – and to encourage them to embrace digitalisation.
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“We are always looking for new ways to engage with our local communities,” said Monica Datta, head of the community impact chapter at DBS Foundation. “Getai is popular among many Singaporeans, especially the senior population, and we thought it would be interesting to explore an edutainment format, and pair it with our digital-literacy programme, and hopefully increase engagement and participation for our digital workshops.”
The bank has been organising more of its workshops at hawker centres on Fridays, so that participants can immediately apply what they have learnt, and also benefit from its 5 Million Hawker Meals programme. The initiative provides a S$3 subsidy to the first 100,000 customers using PayLah! to purchase their meals at hawker centres every Friday.
S$1 billion to support underprivileged communities
The digital literacy roadshows were part of DBS’ broader efforts to bolster digital-inclusion efforts in Singapore. To date, the bank has organised more than 150 digital-readiness workshops that have drawn over 26,000 participants.
In August 2023, DBS said that it would commit up to S$1 billion and 1.5 million volunteer hours over the next 10 years to support programmes to improve the lives and livelihoods of low-income and underprivileged communities. These include measures to help them cope with daily needs such as food and housing, and to equip them with important life skills such as digital and financial literacy.
That same month, the bank also said that it was committing S$40 million in 2023 to measures that help ease cost-of-living pressures for Singaporeans and residents amid the current high-inflation environment. Such efforts aim to defray expenses for DBS customers, as well as provide targeted support for low-income individuals who face acute financial stress.
In November 2022, DBS announced a S$1 million contribution – an amount that was matched by the government – to the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s Digital for Life (DfL) movement, and it also pledged to step up volunteer participation efforts to drive digital-literacy training programmes. The DfL movement supports digital-inclusion projects and activities.
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