Sim Say Hai is 91 years old, and uses an iPad, an iPhone and an Apple Watch.

He continues to drive, despite having a mild stroke some time ago, and for his upcoming 92nd birthday celebration, he even used PhotoShop to create a personalised invitation for his family and friends.

Sim also happens to be one of Singapore's first telecommunications engineers, who was first employed with what was called the Pan-Malaysian Department. Post-independence, it became called the Telecomms Authority of Singapore (TAS), before it eventually evolved into our beloved Singtel.

Why are we talking about him today? Because it's World Telecommunications Day, and Sim, at the ripe young age of 91, continues to stay at the forefront of tech — but he's always been like that, it seems.

In a short film on his life by lawyer Ronald J J Wong and his wife, theatre actress Ethel Yap — who happens to be his granddaughter — we learned some interesting factoids about the life Sim lived and his career contributions:

1. Sim went to school with the late Lee Kuan Yew.

He was just a year below the future Prime Minister at the time — sure enough, he'll be turning 92 this August.

2. He was the first Singaporean to install solar panels here.

According to Wong, Sim installed Singapore's first solar panels to supply power to telecom equipment on the country's offshore islands to allow people living there to phone the mainland.

3. In his youth, he was the legit example of SkillsFuture — decades ahead.

Sim started out as a telegraph operator, and spent his time receiving telegraphs, which he said he got very sick of doing. So he took it upon himself to study the tech behind telegraphs, as well as radio, and mathematics.

He passed his qualifying examinations on these topics first try, and his boss promoted him to oversee Very High Frequency (VHF) telecommunication signals in his first technical job at the TAS.

4. Some of his contributions to Singapore's telecom infrastructure include:

- Installing telecom equipment at our lighthouses;

- Setting up the first fire brigade radio network system;

- Setting up the first mobile phone network; and

- Establishing the first satellite earth station in Sentosa.

Sim even gave then-President Benjamin Sheares and his wife a tour around the spanking-new station, when it officially opened on October 23, 1971 — in the film, he shows off photos from that day proudly.

You can watch an excerpt of the short film, titled "Connected", here:

Or the full thing here:

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Top photo: Screenshot from video

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