There I was, staring at a massive screen in the middle of Orchard Library, watching my digital avatar appear alongside dozens of others. My avatar—with the hairstyle I’d chosen, the shoes I’d picked, the whole personalized package. It felt surreal, like I’d accidentally wandered onto a movie set and somehow ended up as one of the cast members.

This wasn’t science fiction. This was my December, capping off a digital journey that began months earlier in Bangkok and came full circle at a university campus in Singapore.

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d spend months learning AI—first virtually from Bangkok, then in person at a Singapore university—before creating digital avatars and drawing penguins with a stylus pen, I would have laughed and asked what you’d been drinking.

But here’s what I’ve discovered: curiosity doesn’t retire when you do. In fact, it might just be getting started.

💻 Logging Into the Future From Bangkok: My AI Foundation

It started back in August with something called the Generative AI Boot Camp from Vertical Institute. Virtual classes. Twenty-one hours spread over seven sessions. Me, in my Bangkok apartment, learning about AI alongside people I’d never meet in person.

Why did I sign up? Honestly, a mix of curiosity and mild panic about being left behind in a world that seemed to be racing toward AI faster than I could say “ChatGPT.”

Geography Becomes Irrelevant

The beauty of virtual learning? Geography becomes irrelevant. I could be in Bangkok, logging in from my couch with a cup of Thai iced tea beside me, while learning from instructors who could be anywhere. That’s the magic of digital education—it follows you wherever curiosity takes you.

The boot camp covered everything from basic prompt engineering to advanced AI techniques. We learned about ChatGPT, explored different prompting strategies, and even dabbled in API integration. For someone who once thought “prompt engineering” was something you did to train dogs, this was eye-opening.

Validation Through Assessment

What surprised me most? How much more structured and comprehensive this was compared to my solo dabbling with AI tools. The boot camp gave me a proper foundation—the why behind the how.

And when the assessment came around, I won’t lie—I had my share of trepidation. But I passed. Not just squeaked by, but genuinely understood the material well enough to demonstrate it. That moment of seeing my results felt like validation: yes, I can learn this. Yes, at 50-something, I can acquire new technical skills.

One of the key lessons that stuck with me: AI isn’t about replacing human thinking. It’s about augmenting it. It’s a tool, like Excel or Google, but one that can understand context and generate creative solutions. Once I understood that, everything else started making sense.

✈️ The Strategic Pivot: From Virtual to In-Person Application

Wandering the World, But Not Away from AI

After the boot camp ended, I did what I do best—I traveled. The curious part of me that loves exploring new places kept me away from Singapore for a few months.

I drifted from the misty mountains and spicy street markets of Chengdu , to the ancient, sunrise-soaked temples of Siem Reap , and finally to the quiet, barefoot-on-the-sand rhythm of Sumba. Each place pulled me into its world completely—a joyful reset after an intense month of virtual learning.

The Serendipitous Spark

AI wasn’t on my mind at all during these travels—but serendipity clearly had its own itinerary.

Once I returned to Singapore, I attended an Active Aging festival , where an inspiring lecturer shared an SUTD program designed for active agers. His enthusiasm was contagious, and—true to form—the curious part of me reached out afterward to learn more.

That single conversation opened a door I didn’t even know existed. He introduced me to a different, more comprehensive SUTD offering—a bonus I wasn’t expecting, but one that felt perfectly timed. Curiosity nudged me again… and that exploration led me straight to the AI Impact Series.

Returning Home, Ready for What’s Next

By November, everything lined up naturally. So I signed up for the two-day, in-person program at SUTD—the Singapore University of Technology and Design—ready for whatever the next chapter in my AI journey looked like.

Day One: From Awareness to Application

Moving Beyond the Fundamentals

Day One was titled “From Artificial Intelligence (AI) Awareness to Application: Building Foundations for Business Impact.”
Awareness? Yes—I’d already built that foundation. But this course pushed me into a new zone: application.

Learning to Think Like a Strategist

If the Vertical Institute boot camp taught me what AI could do, this course taught me how businesses decide what AI should do.

We shifted from tools to thinking:

• Where does AI genuinely add value?
• How do companies avoid chasing trends and instead make thoughtful decisions?
• What makes an AI use case practical, not theoretical?

It wasn’t about learning tools anymore; it was about learning a framework for decision-making.

The Energy of a Real Classroom

The cohort represented a wide mix of industries—tech managers, business owners, and professionals from sectors that might seem unrelated to AI. Everyone was trying to understand where AI fit into their world.

Being in a physical classroom again felt energizing. Real conversations. Real questions. Real lightbulb moments.

Day Two: From Strategy to Solutioning

Where Ideas Become Use Cases

Day Two went deeper: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy to Solutioning: Diagnosing, Developing, and Designing Use Cases.”

We learned how to:

• diagnose business problems
• develop approaches to solve them
• design structured, actionable AI use cases

It was hands-on, grounded, and very much about reality over theory.

Completing the Learning Arc

The Vertical Institute course had given me the technical foundation—the tools, the concepts, the confidence.
The SUTD program offered the strategic layer—how to evaluate opportunities, prioritize needs, and design meaningful solutions.

Because I already understood the basics, I could immerse fully in the discussion. I wasn’t catching up—I was connecting dots.

Why the AI Impact Series Felt “Just Right”

What struck me most was how precisely the AI Impact Series, developed by SGTech in collaboration with SUTD, addressed what I needed next.

It wasn’t about learning AI just to keep up.
It was about understanding:

• which business problems AI can genuinely solve,
• what skills actually matter in real workplaces, and
• how to think strategically about adoption.

The two-day course was intense, practical, and deeply aligned with where I am on my learning journey.
It felt like a natural progression—and a delightful surprise delivered by curiosity, timing, and a bit of serendipity.

Why This Course Hit Exactly What I Needed

What struck me most? The AI Impact Series, developed by SGTech in collaboration with SUTD, addressed the exact gap I was trying to fill: not just understanding AI tools, but identifying relevant business use cases and determining what AI skills workers actually need.

It’s not about learning AI for the sake of learning AI—it’s about understanding how to make it work for real business goals.

The two-day course was intense, practical, and entirely focused on application.
Which is exactly what I needed after spending August building my foundation.

🤖 The Digital Homecoming: An Avatar Experience at Orchard

With my AI education spanning from Bangkok to SUTD, I was back in my home rhythm in Singapore. And apparently, the universe decided I wasn’t quite done with digital surprises.

Last week, I found myself at the SG60 Heart & Soul Experience at Orchard Library. I went in completely blind. What I got was something straight out of a sci-fi movie—and after months of learning about AI, I could actually appreciate the technology behind it.

Seeing Generative AI in Action

The experience began with me chatting with an avatar—a digital librarian who asked me questions about my preferences. Using generative AI (the same technology I’d spent August learning about!), the system created my personalized avatar right there on the spot.

And then—this is the surreal part—my avatar appeared on a giant screen along with all the other participants’ avatars. It was like watching yourself become part of a digital world in real time.

After months of learning about how AI works, seeing it create something so personal and playful felt like coming full circle. There’s something both profound and delightful about seeing yourself reimagined digitally, especially when you understand the technology making it possible.

🎨 Closing the Week: Digital Art Brings It All Together

If months of AI learning and avatar experiences weren’t enough of a departure from my comfort zone, I decided to close out my week—and my unexpected digital journey—with something completely different: a digital art class.

I am not an artist. But curiosity doesn’t care about past failures, apparently. So there I was, stylus pen in hand, staring at a blank digital canvas, tasked with drawing something. I chose a penguin.

Embracing the Beginner Mindset

My penguin emerged slowly. Very slowly. With a body that was slightly lopsided, wings that didn’t quite match, and an expression that looked more confused than cute.

But here’s the thing: it was mine. I created it. And while it definitely wasn’t gallery-worthy, I felt an unexpected sense of pride looking at my wonky little penguin on that screen.

The digital format made mistakes feel less permanent. More importantly, the class reminded me of something crucial: being a beginner again is good for you. It’s humbling, yes. Sometimes frustrating, definitely. But it’s also energizing.

💡 One Thread Across Many Experiences

Looking back at this journey—starting my AI boot camp in Bangkok, diving deeper at SUTD, creating my digital avatar, and closing with my penguin masterpiece—I see a pattern that spans both time and geography.

These weren’t random activities scattered across months and cities. They were all connected by curiosity. By a willingness to try something new, even when I had no idea if I’d be any good at it.

There’s this myth that technology is “for young people.” But that’s nonsense.

Age doesn’t determine curiosity. It doesn’t set limits on what you can learn or try. If anything, having more life experience makes you better equipped to ask meaningful questions and see connections others might miss.

• The Vertical Institute course gave me confidence—I could learn this, and I genuinely understood the concepts.
• The SUTD course gave me purpose—I now knew how to apply what I’d learned to real business challenges.
• The avatar and art experiences gave me joy—reminders that learning doesn’t always have to be serious or strategic.

I’m simply staying engaged with life—with the world around me, with new ideas, with possibilities. And honestly? That feels more anti-aging than any cream or treatment I’ve ever tried.

🚀 Keep Clicking, Keep Creating, Keep Curious

My journey from that virtual Generative AI boot camp in Bangkok to the application-focused strategic thinking at SUTD to the playful avatar experience at SG60 to my wonky penguin—it’s not a straight line.

But the point isn’t to master every new tool. The point is to stay open. To remain curious. To say “yes” to experiences that stretch you, even if they feel intimidating at first.

I’m not a tech expert. I’m not a business strategist. I’m definitely not an artist.

But I understand AI better than I did in July. I can think about business use cases in ways I couldn’t before. I have a digital avatar and a digital penguin that make me smile.

And that’s enough.

At 50-something, I’m not slowing down. I’m clicking forward—one virtual lesson, one in-person workshop, one avatar, one very imperfect penguin at a time.

Because if there’s one thing this journey from Bangkok to SUTD to Orchard taught me, it’s this: you’re never too old to surprise yourself, and curiosity doesn’t need a permanent address.

What about you? What’s one thing you’ve been curious about but haven’t tried yet? Maybe it’s time to click forward and find out.