Opening Remarks by Mr Eric Chua, Senior Parliamentary Secretary of Ministry of Law and Ministry of Social and Family Development, at the SMU LIT Hackathon 2025

Introduction

1. Good morning, everyone.

2. I am excited to be here today with all of you at the SMU-LIT Hackathon 2025. One of the best things about youth events, like this, is the incredible energy and creativity that they bring together.

3. Since its inception in 2021, this annual hackathon has grown into Singapore’s largest inter-varsity legaltech competition. Today, it has brought together the brightest minds from universities across Singapore, and here, your mission is to tackle real-world challenges that sit at the intersection of law and technology.

Meaningful Innovations Transform Experiences

4. Some of you may have attended TechLaw.Fest a few days ago. There, I spoke about my excitement about the new possibilities that can emerge when law, tech and ‘social needs’ converge to drive meaningful, real-world impact.

5. I shared with the audience some examples of this from my experience at the Ministry of Social and Family Development, and I thought it would be good for me to share some examples from MinLaw with all of you today.

6. The first example is MinLaw’s Divorce AIDE.  This is an online tool designed to educate individuals on the principles of matrimonial asset division and help them estimate the share of the matrimonial assets they might receive upon divorce. Imagine, you are going through a divorce, navigating a difficult and emotional transition. This tool can offer some level of clarity, manage expectations, and at the same time, help make the legal journey feel much less daunting.

7. The second example is e-Bantu, which means “help” in Malay. This tool supports individuals filing for divorce or preparing their memorandum of defence in the Syariah Court. The tool will help users fill in the legal forms whilst educating them on Syariah law principles. It also suggests reasonable ranges that the users can offer or claim for maintenance based on data from actual court cases. By combining practical assistance with legal education, e-Bantu empowers users to navigate Syariah Court proceedings with greater confidence and clarity.

8. These experiences taught me that the most meaningful innovations are those that transform the lived experiences of the people that we serve.

9. I therefore encourage you to focus on creating solutions that will address real-world challenges and enhance the user experience. Solutions that will make users go “oh, life is so much easier now with this tool”.

The Role of Young Innovators in Shaping the Future

10. Today’s theme is “LegalTech: Cultivating the Minds of Tomorrow”.

11. Cultivating minds is not just about developing technical expertise. It is also about nurturing innovators who understand that technology must, first and foremost, serve humanity, not the other way around. This means putting human needs and values at the heart of every solution we implement and build.

12. All of you, young ones in this hall, are the bright minds of tomorrow, and your generation will bring fresh perspectives to today’s challenges.

13. Most of you, if not all of you, grew up as digital natives. Unlike me, I am a digital migrant. The internet and social networking sites did not come into existence until the later part of my life.

14. Today, technology has been woven into how you communicate, learn, and solve problems. This, therefore, gives you an advantage.

15. Advantage, in terms of having an intuitive sense of how digital solutions can bridge gaps and simplify complexity. As we all know, in the world of hyper-information and hyper-connectedness today, the problem is no longer with the lack of information, but about sorting and arranging the barrage of information that comes at us at all angles.

16. When you look at systems that may seem rigid or inaccessible, you naturally consider how technology might make them more user-friendly and human-centred.

17. When you combine this intuition with empathy, clear understanding of your target audience, and the crux of the problem statement, it becomes a powerful force for building solutions that are not just functional, but genuinely transformative.

18. Today, I challenge all 150 of you to go deeper. Use this hackathon as a space to connect across disciplines, challenge assumptions, and co-create solutions that are human-centric, innovative, and purposeful.

19. With technology advancing at an unprecedented pace, the possibilities for innovation are vast. But, meaningful innovation does not happen in silos.

20. It is when you bring together your diverse academic backgrounds, whether from law, computer science, business, engineering, design and so on, that you are able to unlock new ways to solve complex challenges that no single discipline can achieve on its own.

Responsible adoption and innovation

21. At the TechLaw.Fest, I spoke about responsible adoption of Gen AI tools. Notwithstanding how impressive Gen AI tools can be, we must be clear-eyed about their limitations.

22. These systems do not think, reason, or understand context the way humans do. They can generate content, lots of it, but they cannot grasp nuances. They process and manipulate data through algorithms, but they cannot weigh consequences or navigate ethical complexities.

23. This is why we must remain fully accountable for how we use these tools and what we use them for, especially in the legal domain where decisions can affect people’s rights, livelihoods, and access to justice.

24. Legaltech can support legal professionals in drafting, legal research and analysis, but it cannot replace their professional expertise, ethical judgement, and ability to navigate complex issues.

25. Today, I want to spend some time talking about responsible innovation. As future legaltech innovators, you carry an important responsibility.

26. You are not just writing code. You are shaping how people interact with the law. You are designing systems that may one day help someone navigate legal processes more effectively. You are enabling legal professionals to serve their clients more efficiently and effectively.

27. So, I urge all of us to think about building with care and purpose.

28. Design solutions that are fair, transparent and trustworthy. Embed human-centric values into your solutions. Make sure that they are inclusive, accessible especially for communities often at the margins of society, for instance, our lower-income families and persons with disabilities and special needs.

29. Make sure that what you design are aligned with public interests, and include safeguards that protect users from harm, misuse, or misunderstanding.

MinLaw’s effort to support legaltech and innovation

30. At MinLaw, we envision a legal sector that is future-ready and tech-enabled.

31. To support our legal professionals, we developed the Guide for Using GenAI in the Legal Sector to guide legal professionals in harnessing GenAI safely and responsibly. It is now open for public consultation on MinLaw’s website till 30 September, and we welcome your feedback.

32. We recognise that successful technology adoption requires not just the right tools, but also the right systems and processes in place.

33. We thus launched the Legal Innovation and Future-readiness Transformation (LIFT) pilot initiative. This provides change management support for Singapore law practices, starting with the smaller ones, when adopting legaltech solutions.

34. We are also introducing LegalTech GoWhere to grow our legaltech ecosystem and create more avenues for discovery and collaboration. There will be a series of upcoming high-cadence events that we will be organising with the Singapore Academy of Law, which you can join to connect, innovate and discuss the future of legaltech with fellow legaltech enthusiasts.

Closing

35. Over the next two days, you will be tackling problems that are real-world challenges faced by the legal sector.

36. Your fresh perspectives could very well spark new ideas and shape the future of legal practice in Singapore and beyond.

37. As you dive into your projects today, I encourage you to think boldly, build responsibly, and–I cannot emphasise this more–always have a heart for the positive human impact you can create.

38. With that, I wish you all the best, and may you have a meaningful and productive hackathon ahead.

39. Thank you.

Last updated on 13 September 2025