Seeing P2 boy with HSA fine for vaping spurred SMU law student to create app for youth to quit habit

SINGAPORE - At a Meet-the-People (MPS) session in Tampines in 2025, a father came with his Primary Two son who had been fined by the Health Sciences Authority for vaping.

The scene struck Joy Liew, 21, a law student from Singapore Management University (SMU) who helped them file an appeal to waive the fine.

It prompted her to create an app to help youth quit vaping, which was one of the winning student projects showcased at the launch of Law Awareness Weeks @ CDC (LAW@CDC) 2026 on Oct 3 at Our Tampines Hub.

LAW@CDC is a nationwide effort started in 2015 to promote legal awareness in the community. Over the next month, the initiative will bring talks on issues like neighbour disputes; marriage and divorce, and scams, to community centres and Residents’ Networks around Singapore.

Liew said she had previously thought vaping mainly affected older teenagers.

She said: “I was really shocked that vaping had even reached children at such a young age.”

She does not know the outcome of the boy’s case. But with tougher laws on vaping, she felt it was important to steer young people away from this vice given its potential impact on their future.

Liew and fellow law student, Amber Tng, 21, computer science student, Anson Koh, 23, and information systems student, Lee Yi Terng, 24, created the app ClearAir for youth who had been caught vaping and want to quit.

They spoke to social workers and discovered support gaps.

Some youth may not have family members to hold them accountable during their rehabilitation.

And there were moments between counselling sessions where youth may be tempted to vape again.

App users track their progress with daily check-ins and set financial goals to avoid spending their savings on vapes.

They can also indicate locations where they feel triggered to vape, such as where their friends congregate, and the app will remind them when they are near these spots.

When the urge to vape arises, pressing a red “Craving SOS” button leads users to activities which can distract them, such as playing games and reading success stories of former addicts.

Their group was one of five teams which won $5,000 in prize money for their ideas as part of the Access to Justice Community Co-Lab, which invites university students to address legal issues through innovative community solutions.

Money mules and employment claims

Another winning team of SMU law students realised that online infographics about legal information were unintelligible to screen readers - software which converts content on a screen into speech or Braille for visually-impaired individuals.

Employment claims, such as for wrongful dismissal, are even more difficult as individuals are typically meant to file such cases without a lawyer’s help.

The group, made up of Jace Bong, 23, Kristen Ng, 21, Lim Chia Yeh, 27, and Sean Cheng, 24, created a platform, See-Kaki, with an artificial intelligence chatbot which asks questions and guides visually-impaired individuals through the employment claim process.

Warning youth against becoming money mules was the focus for a team of National University of Singapore (NUS) law students, Kristen Joseph Fernando, 24, Owen Tan, 24, Dorthy Wang, 22, and Naomi Goh, 22.

During an attachment with the Public Defender’s Office, Fernando realised there were many youth who were caught for being money mules. Some were not aware of the legal consequences.

Their team sent messages to youth that sounded like money mule advertisements promising fast cash. Clicking on the message’s links leads people to their website, Spot It First, which educates them on common red flags and penalties for scam offences. Over 180 people have accessed their website so far.

Minister for Law Edwin Tong said at the launch event that he was heartened to see young people lend their fresh perspectives to the age-old issue of access to justice.

The heart of access to justice is looking at problems from the laypersons’ perspective and not only from a legal practitioner’s point of view, said Tong.

He said: “It must be a system that can work for people. It’s easy to say, but I think it’s much harder to do.”