Built to Last: How Ng Yong Jie Turned Vision into Legacy

Ng Yong Jie graduates not just as a top student, but as a builder of communities and opportunities for others – having led a student committee that helped grow the CCDS Innovation Lab into a platform for mentorship, skills-building, and peer support.

“I came into NTU straight from national service, full of energy and ready to dive in,” he recalls. “What I was really looking for was a sense of community.”

That drive shaped his first year. Yong Jie joined the Crescent Hall committee, signed up as a dancer, and participated in orientation – all in search of connection after national service.

It wasn’t just about having fun. Getting involved showed him how things worked behind the scenes, from planning events to executing them on the ground. It made him more aware of what juniors might need to settle in and succeed.

He brought the same mindset to the Innovation Lab, designing programmes with structure and continuity in mind – so future cohorts could build on what came before.

Learning to Focus

For someone with big goals, Yong Jie often found himself pulled in too many directions. In his early years at NTU, he took on a heavy mix of activities, competitions, internships, and leadership roles, driven by the desire to learn, grow, and contribute wherever he could.

“There were times I said yes to too many things. I felt stretched in every direction,” he says. “Eventually, I realised I couldn’t do everything well. Learning to say no was one of the most powerful lessons.”

It was a turning point. Choosing to prioritise gave him space to lead more intentionally, whether it was guiding the Innovation Lab or deepening his skills in backend development.

Exploring Through Experience

Yong Jie took on four internships, including two at TikTok,  where he worked on backend systems and later continued with the team part-time. It was his first time contributing to a live production codebase, learning how to build reliable tools for real users while balancing the demands of school and work.

He also explored frontend development and data science through other internships, deliberately broadening his skills to get a clearer sense of his strengths and interests.

“I started coding before university, just for fun. Internships gave me the chance to test myself, see what I enjoyed, and understand where I could contribute.”

One of Yong Jie’s most demanding challenges came at AngelHack HackSingapore 2023. His team developed a sustainability tool to help small businesses monitor and track carbon emissions.

The project required integrating sensors, microcontrollers, and a backend dashboard:  layers of complexity that pushed Yong Jie beyond anything he’d worked on before. None of the team had hardware experience. “It was like building blind,” he says. “Things broke, chips fried – we had to troubleshoot everything from scratch.”

Still, they pressed on. “We kept going because we believed in the idea. We thought it could actually make a difference.”

That belief paid off. They clinched first prize, and Yong Jie walked away with a deeper understanding of innovation as a messy, belief-driven process grounded in purpose and persistence.

 

Redefining Student Leadership

In his final year, Yong Jie served as President of the CCDS Innovation Lab Student Committee; and his mission was clear: to build structured, lasting systems that would outlive his term.

“In Year One, I didn’t feel there were enough resources or support to give students a head start. So I made it my mission to change that.”

He spearheaded a mentorship programme pairing juniors with seniors, introduced weekly technical interview prep sessions, and launched summer development projects that gave students hands-on experience.

Yong Jie also initiated collaborations with industry partners, bringing in speakers and running workshops on topics like generative AI and software engineering best practices.

“We worked with big names, from Shopee to ByteDance,” he says. “My goal was to make the Innovation Lab a place where students not only learn but also connect to real-world industry trends.”

To ensure the lab’s sustainability, he pushed for committee members to be awarded CCA points; formalising recognition for their time and effort.

“People need to be recognised for their time. That’s how you build something that lasts.”

 

Values That Guide

Two principles anchor Yong Jie’s leadership: a commitment to excellence, and an intentional use of time. He cultivated both early on; balancing hall activities, internships, and academic work; and they became the foundation of how he builds communities and systems.

“How you do anything is how you do everything. Even if you only have 50 percent to give, give that 50 percent fully.”

Discipline, he adds, is not just about output, it is also about recovery. “In Year One, I was getting eight to nine hours of sleep. It made all the difference. You can’t perform well if you’re not rested.”

For him, making time to rest and focus wasn’t a luxury, it was a deliberate strategy for staying effective, especially when juggling leadership and studies. It is a mindset he hopes others will carry forward: to lead with intention, not exhaustion.

A Broader Perspective

Yong Jie’s exchange semester at the University of Waterloo was a turning point. Beyond the fun and fresh environment, what struck him most was how student communities abroad built their own support systems, from study groups to peer mentorship.

“We travelled, cooked, and studied together, and it reminded me that learning isn’t just academic, it’s about people and perspectives,” he says.

That experience deepened his belief that building communities is just as important as academic achievement; a mindset he carried into his leadership of the Innovation Lab Student Committee.

 

 

Built to Last

For Yong Jie, success was never about stacking credentials – it was about building things that last: systems, communities, and opportunities for others.

His quiet leadership has left a visible mark on CCDS, from student initiatives to the values he’s helped embed in the Innovation Lab culture.

As he steps into the next chapter – whether in industry, research, or mentorship – his approach remains steady: design for impact, lead with intention, and leave the space stronger than you found it.

Because for Yong Jie, leadership isn’t about the spotlight. It’s about setting the stage for others to rise.