Charles Ngui – EDB’s Masters & Apprentices Part 2 | Chronicles of Old Singapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Charles Ngui remembers the 'espionage' in industrial services in the 1970s. The EDB's Light Industries Services made prototypes and did reverse engineering for its clients. Singapore did not need money to industrialise, but industrial expertise. He later joined the National Engineering Services, a government-owned company, as a marketing officer. He talks about its struggles and why it eventually failed. Part 1 | https://youtu.be/6-u7rymWSKk Part 2 | https://youtu.be/UtyDCpVboNY Part 3 | https://youtu.be/v2eHkDbDJ3Y Part 4 | https://youtu.be/Tz-PjDMHJvk 00:00 Why Light Industry was Crucial 06:43 Returned Scholars 11:43 Prototypes & Production 16:13 Working with local & foreign companies 22:27 Reverse Engineering 27:12 Clients & Cases 35:59 National Engineering Services 42:03 Closure of NES I’m Dr Loh KS, the people’s historian. I’m interested in the history of Singapore and the lives of its people. In Chronicles of Old Singapore, I speak to people about their memories of Singapore before it became a global city today. We discuss three topics: 1. People and places. 2. Change and continuity. 3. The importance of heritage. As a historian, I try to stay true to the oral history method on a video format and social media platform. I let the interviewee speak, as the ‘voice of the past’ as Paul Thompson put it. No clickbait, no BS, no posturing. The aim is to canvas a wide range of voices on various aspects of Singapore history and heritage – physical, social, cultural, economic. Do like the video, share your memories below and subscribe to the channel for future episodes. Write to lohkahseng@chroniclesresearch.com if you have any of these stories to share: • Old places or kampongs. • Communities – their way of life & culture. • Childhood & schools. • Work or business. Support Chronicles of Old Singapore on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore Follow the channel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551786759344 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lks992002 Chronicles of Old Singapore is also the name of my research consultancy on the history of Singapore: https://www.chroniclesresearch.com/ Caveat: this is above all a podcast based on personal memory. As has been well-documented in oral history, memory is not always reliable and what is recalled here should not be taken as fact. However, as Alessandro Portelli noted, the subjectivity of oral history is also its great strength, and what is inaccurately remembered may point to how deeply meaningful the past is to people. #singaporehistory #memory #heritage #nostalgia #oralhistory #socialhistory #history #singapore