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# Silicon Wok is open
- URL: https://www.siliconwok.com/silicon-wok-is-open/
- Published: 2026-11-01T14:25:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-01T14:21:53.000Z
- Description: Silicon Wok is the new home of Hawker Heritage, an open plan to keep Singapore's hawker trade alive for another generation.
- Author: Uncle James
- Tags: News

Silicon Wok is open. It is the home of [Hawker Heritage](https://hawker.siliconwok.com/?ref=siliconwok.com), an open library on how Singapore's hawker trade works: what a plate costs to make, who earns what, and what it would take to keep the trade alive for another generation.

The short version: a hawker centre can be full and still lose its heritage. The median hawker is 60 years old (MSE, Nov 2024). The typical margin is 20–30¢ a dish (NEA Workgroup, 2020). Of 566 people who finished the Hawkers' Development Programme's classroom training, 16 run a stall in a hawker centre today – 2.8% (MSE, Jul 2024). And the Government keeps no register of which hawker trades are at risk (MCCY, 7 Oct 2026).

The plan rests on three ideas – give first, buy services rather than exclusivity, and let the business itself carry succession:

- **Make the trade worth entering:** published rent bands with stalls let by ballot, a Relief-Hawker Corps to break the six-day grind, and Buying Circles so hawkers can bargain together.
- **Move the knowledge before it is lost:** a Regulars' List at every centre and a Culinary Seed Bank that pays masters to teach at their own stalls.
- **Let the business pay for succession:** a Succession Mortgage that lets the incoming cook pay the retiring one out of future takings, and a Family Name Royalty for the master's children.

Start with [the plan in under three minutes](https://hawker.siliconwok.com/?ref=siliconwok.com) (a 2 min 23 s film, narrated, with captions), then [the download page](https://hawker.siliconwok.com/downloads/?ref=siliconwok.com), which says which volume to read first. Everything is free to use: text and data under CC BY 4.0, code under MIT.

This site is where we'll write about it, share stories from the stalls, and invite you in. Stories, corrections, photos and volunteers are all welcome – [here's how to help](https://www.siliconwok.com/contribute/).

– Uncle James