Build Story
July 2026
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Google Cloud Gen AI Academy
From PR to Citizen to "Why Is This So Hard?": Building MerlionOS
When I became a Singapore citizen, I sat down to list all the agency sites I needed to access to fulfill my new duties, stay informed, and handle daily life. By the time I finished collating my essential checklist—ranging from IRAS and ICA to CPF, HealthHub, and SMRT updates—the count came to 81 separate statutory board and national service portals.
How I built MerlionOS from a local 19-portal script into an AI-powered civic command center shortlisted in the Top 101 out of 1,500+ projects—featuring Google Gemini 2.5 Flash, RAG vector embeddings, 3-tier WAF-proof BigQuery ETL, and live agency feeds.