OpenSkills
Join a build teamBring us a brief
Join a build teamBring us a brief

About OpenSkills

A non-profit in Singapore working on AI education, literacy and development. We started in 2026 with one question: who gets shown how to build with these tools, and who gets left to watch?

Learners seated at long tables with laptops, facing a projected slide
The room in week one. Sembawang, 23 August 2026.

Our story

Plenty of people understand a problem worth solving. Far fewer have been shown that they could build the fix themselves. OpenSkills exists to close that gap in two ways, and we keep them apart on purpose.

University student teams build agentic AI systems for Singapore businesses and charities that have slow, manual workflows and no budget for a software team. Volunteer engineers support each team, and the partner keeps the code, the accounts and a one-page runbook. The first build cycle starts later this year.

Separately, we teach free, in-person applied AI courses for migrant workers, referred through our partner charity It’s Raining Raincoats. The first cohort of 20 learners began on 23 August 2026 in Sembawang: five Sundays, an hour and a half each, with every laptop provided. The course learners are not members of the student build teams.

Where the money goes

Nobody at OpenSkills takes a salary. The founder and individual supporters pay for laptops, venue hire, materials, hosting and AI costs, and anything left over goes to the next cohort. OpenSkills is an unregistered non-profit initiative based in Singapore.

Introducing Claude to the first cohort from the projector, week one.
  • A learner raises a hand with a question while others around the room look on
    A question from the room, week two.
  • Learners seated in rows with laptops, facing a projected slide
    The hall in Sembawang, week three.
Yibo Yang working on a laptop at a desk
Yibo Yang, founder of OpenSkills.

Yibo Yang

A student in Singapore who kept noticing the same thing: the moment someone realises they can make the tool themselves, everything else opens up.

Most of Yibo’s work sits between two interests, widening access to education and building software that people pick up and use. Neither came from a job title. Yibo is not a teacher by trade or a developer by training, and started both projects below by noticing a gap and doing something about it.

The first was ForAnother, a fundraising project for students that has raised more than S$5,700 for students in South Africa and Singapore. The money paid for school essentials.

The second was Snapiq, a Chrome extension that merges screenshots so people can get past AI upload limits. It is used by over 100 people.

OpenSkills joins those two threads. Yibo taught the first cohort in person on Sunday mornings in Sembawang, and the course ends with each learner publishing an app they built themselves.

Yibo on LinkedInEmail Yibo
Yibo Yang taking a selfie in front of a group of learners, some waving
Yibo with the first cohort, week two.

Websites Yibo has built

Two sites for non-profit organisations, from first conversation to live site.

See the portfolio

ForAnother

Before OpenSkills there was ForAnother, a fundraising project Yibo founded. It has raised more than S$5,700 for students in South Africa and Singapore, and the money paid for school essentials.

These photos and the clip are from a school kit handover run with Gawad Kalinga. More of the project is on Instagram at @for_another16_.

Volunteers with the kits before the handover.
  • Rows of school kits wrapped in plastic on a table
    School kits packed for handing out.
  • Volunteers sorting school supplies at a classroom table
    Sorting supplies before the handover.
  • A volunteer in a blue habit hands a kit to a child
    Kits handed to students.
  • Children gathered around volunteers in an open hall
    Students waiting for their kits.
  • Volunteers holding school kits in a room
    Volunteers with the kits.
  • A line of volunteers and students holding kits in a school hall
    The full group with Gawad Kalinga.
  • Volunteers standing together indoors beside boxes of supplies
    Supplies ready to go.
  • Students and volunteers exchanging kits in a schoolyard
    Handing out kits in the schoolyard.
  • Young volunteers standing in a covered hall holding wrapped school kits
    Kits ready for the next group of students.
  • Volunteers in blue printed shirts talking with staff in a schoolyard
    Volunteers talking in the schoolyard.