Digital memorial, mother tongue AI voice bot among new tech trialled

Growing up, Mr Liau Wen Rui learnt about the life of his fisherman grandfather, who died before he was born, through stories from his relatives.

- Sarah Koh

Mr Liau Wen Rui (far right), senior product manager with GovTech, at the AfterLifeSG booth at the 2023 GovTech Innovation Day on Nov 13. With him are (from far left) Ms Delcine See, assistant director with the memorial facilities planning division at the National Environment Agency; Mr Talib Hameed, senior digital business analyst at GovTech; Mr brandon Low, head of the memorial facilities planning division at NEA; Mr Arthur Lee, UX designer at GovTech; Mr Justin Ng, systems engineer at GovTech; and Ms Ellie Yee, software engineer at GovTech. The AfterLifeSG platform allows users to create memorials of a family member who has died. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI

(ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI)

"When I look at his niche during visits (to the columbarium), all I see is his name, photo, date of birth and death," said the 29-year-old, who is a senior product manager at the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech).

“I always thought, there has to be a better way to capture memories of him for myself, and for future generations of the family.”

So when the inaugural {build} hackathon organised by GovTech Singapore rolled around in February, he partnered four colleagues and the National Environment Agency to build AfterLifeSG, a digital platform that allows relatives and friends to contribute memories of a loved one.

The platform allows users to create memorials of a dead family member, share a personal description of them and provide the location of their niche or grave plot.