Friendship Kayak is an adventure trip through the Philippines which aims to celebrate the 40 years of friendship between Singapore and the Philippines. The expedition involves Mr Khoo Swee Chiow paddling a distance of 3,300 km through the Philippine Archipelago over a span of 100 days from August to November 2009.

Mr Khoo Swee Chiow is an intrepid adventurer known for his relentless pursuit of, and passion for challenging expeditions and adventures. His exploits include climbing Mount Everest as part of Singapore’s first Mount Everest expedition and skiing to the South Pole as the leader of Singapore’s first Antarctica expedition.

Mr Khoo approached the Temasek Informatics & IT School for help with developing the website for Friendship Kayak. He had previously worked with two of its students Daryl Ng and Jeremy Goh from the Diploma in Information Technology on a ‘real-time tracking on Google Earth’ project. This time, for the Friendship Kayak website project, senior students, Aaron Alexander Lim and Chew Tee Ming from the Diploma in Information Technology, and junior students Mohammad Rafie Bin Ramli and Yeow Chun Sian from the Diploma in Interactive Media Informatics, are helping not only with the designing and creating of the website, but with its maintenance as well. One of the key features of the website is that it would provide supporters with constantly updated information and details of the journey.

One of the students, Aaron Alexander Lim shared that “the project has such a significant cause” and that working on it has given the team “a sense of accomplishment in helping to forge stronger ties between Singapore and the Philippines.” He added, “I am deeply grateful for having this amazing opportunity to contribute my part in making the entire expedition a success.” Of course, he also relished the opportunity to work with Mr Khoo whom he has found to be a “patient and understanding man”. The team has greatly enjoyed their collaboration with him.

The website can be found at: http://friendshipkayak.com/blog/