some crazy kerfunky ideas.

Twitter is such a useful tool. Microblogging aside, its a great tool to keep track of the thoughts being generated as you surf the web. Kinda cool, to be able to record your mental state and ideas. The second best thing to a mental recorder embedded in the head.

Today I had a couple of really vague ideas, and they centre around the notion of an informational society - that unless society and its individuals actively take part in, and create information content, only then the society can make a move towards innovation. Its an ongoing information revolution, about how information - blog, videos, podcast and all, how all these things are changing the very fabric of our lives.

The other idea I had was that I realised that I'm really a connector. I think I wrote down somewhere, that I would like to know everything, but since thats impossible, I connect similar things together, like the TED presentations I like, the books I read, the websites I surf, and how all of these connect together, first within themselves, then with each other. Towards ever more convergences, no matter how tangential they seem to each other. That's my driving force for the term 'tanvergence'. haha. right.

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integrating technology into everyday life

I know this might sound as a crazy idea, but I imagine this is how technology might be integrated with our HDB life, for now. Of course ideas like these could always be broken down into smaller and smaller elements all the way to the individual, but hey, just try to stay with me for a while.

Technology thinking has mostly been centred around the individual, like how the individual can be empowered using devices, or how technology can be integrated into shirts and accessories and all. These are exciting no doubt, but I would like to think of something else.

I want to imagine the connected HDB flat and the connected HDB estate, or a connected residential estate, for that matter.

Its rather simple, actually. Its simply social networking brought down to a more physical reality. It means linking every homes to every other home, into a network. This network would allow people to communicate with each other like how they would for a normal networking website, instead now, you are communicating with people just next to you.

This is at the same time, breathtakingly stupid and breathtakingly smart. Its breathtaking stupid, because since all of us are together, why would we need these tools to stay connected? Well, the thing is, I think urban people stay online with distant people more than they stay in touch with the people next to them. So what my idea does, is simply putting people closer to each other in the digital sense. People say that living in HDB flats took away the whatever-kampung spirit. Well, here's my stupid solution. Wire up all the houses together, have a user interface simple enough that people will commit to using it to tell their neighbour what they are doing. Live IM in the HDB flats. Allow people to communicate to each other easily!

And still better. Connect all the flats to each other so people in adjacent blocks can be connected to each other. Wouldn't all these nurture better ties to each other?

And the thing is, it has to be simple, intuitive, and accessible. I'm sure this idea will be implemented sooner or later....

Its fun, isn't it?

Of course there are problems, the main one being, whether people are keen to do this or not? Will people be willing to IM each other? If people are willing to Twitter in the public, I don't see why not. This is going to cater to young people to share with each other their lives' experiences, this is going to cater to parents who want to discuss with each other about parenting and education, this is going to cater to suppliers of household stuff - so this is where money might come from. It could all work! theorectically.

hah.

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education, inspiration and innovation

One of the things that has bothered me a lot in Singapore is our education. But before I go any further, I would like to say that even though our education is far from perfect, it actually is pretty good, having brought us to where we are today. Come to think of it, the criticisms that I'm making are actually applicable to the education system of many countries.

This is obvious, but for a start, there is a tension in most education system between the needs of the individual and the community. Its a resource allocation problem, I guess, that the education systems of all countries are such that resources are utilized to maximize the benefits to most kids - to use what the country has to improve the whole population of children rather than focus on a few bright sparks who might be einsteins. That's one the major tensions in most education systems.

In Singapore it's the same. The education system is such that it affords most people with the basic knowledge of the workings of the modern world. Unfortunately, Singapore now faces a potential 'Innovation Gap' with other countries. The strategic challenge that Singapore faces today is regarding innovation. It's about whether Singaporeans can innovate fast enough in the future, competing with people in the region, in Asia, in the world, as a whole.

The key to that question lies ultimately in our education system. Its about whether our education system can provide our future leaders with the skillsets required for the innovation race in the future and even today.

The recent changes made to our education system I hope, will be only a start. The changes in syllabus and curriculum are such that young people are educated of the various fields and since it is compulsory to study both the science and humanities, it will better equip our future leaders to deal with the complexities of the present and future.

I hope there will be more changes - changes that will better equip teachers as well for this innovation challenge. Without innovative teachers, all these talk about education inculcating innovation among our future leaders will be just that - talk. For the whole education system to work, it is obvious that we need innovative teachers as well.

In this post, I don't want to talk about just the syllabus, curriculum, teachers and students. The whole theme of this entry has been about innovation in education, about the 4 things mentioned above. But lately, I've realised that the education of innovation is not the school's responsibility alone. Ultimately, for innovation to thrive, you need people to begin the process of integrating innovation in their lives by themselves. The future leaders that I'm talking about - the kids still schooling today, they are going to come out of school and realise all of these things that they've missed about, about the world out there and all the synthesis that have been going on between different areas of knowledge, the connections that are being made, and the silent ongoing revolutions in technology, entertainment and design. And when they've realise just how much they've been missing out, they will ask themselves the same question, 'why didn't my education prepare me with all these?'

On the Internet, there are already amazing resources that can equip students with knowledge of all the latest happenings, about the going-ons at the forefront of innovation. An when they do find out about it, they will want to share with their friends, with their families. All we have here in Singapore are just pockets of people who are in the know about all these, and it's simply not enough. It has to begin somewhere, and I believe that it should happen in the schools. It should begin in the schools to tell kids about the existence of these things, and it should begin in the schools where they can share and discuss these things with their friends, and t should begin in the schools where they can explore some of these ideas... But for all these to happen, some tenets of our education here in Singapore will have to change.

Our education system is efficient. It is good at producing people who are prepared for the world of manufacturing and service industries. But as we are slowly finding out, it won't be enough in the present and future environment that will be innovation-centred. This is why ITEs are reinventing themselves, not just producing technically competent people, but people who are able to move up on the value ladder and begin to seriously innovate and produce new products or methodologies. And even our polys are rebranding themselves too, as potential hubs of innovation, and the same goes for our universities.

I think there is a need now to revise the way we look at our schools. Our schools are no longer factories producing cogs and gears for the giant machinery of our economy. We need to know look at our schools as Hubs of Innovation, not just as places where we teach thing and inculcate values and all.

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Innovate, Innovate!

Statements like the following one have been made so many times that it seems cliched: that innovation is going to be the key to success in this century.

Innovation has to become part of the DNA of any society or country in order for that particular society or country to be economically successful in the long run. In order words, innovation has to be part of the education curriculum, so that every generation of children that has gone through schooling will be ready to innovate solutions...

I don't know how else to put it - innovation is something that can never be overemphasized, and the same regarding the urgency, right here in Singapore. Are we adapting fast enough? Are we nurturing innovation?

Which brings us to the entire issue of the patterns of innovation, the factors that nurture innovation and things like that. Are we adapting our society for innovation? I think these are some of the questions that are keeping policy-makers up at night. Well, at least I hope they bother to think of these things. Because I think that the challenge to innovate is one of the most important and urgent problems, and a long term one at that, that Singapore will have to face in order to become successful as a global city.

And innovation will be closely tied to our education, society and culture... how we adapt them for this century...

maybe we could adapt more Montessori philosophies into primary school education for a start...

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Past acaedmic projects

I was looking at my older notebooks, and a past entry jumped out at me. It was something of a more academic nature, and it reflected my past interest in a lot of things.

I went to check out the modules offered at NUS, and was kinda underwhelmed at the things they offered. Arh well. As it turned out, the modules offered wheren't exactly what I had in mind, when matched against my academic interests. Arh well.

I thought civilisation studies would be about the overarching concepts about what defines a civilisation and the factors that made it so. Apparently, the people at NUS who created the module turned into case studies into specific civilisations...

I don't know. I looked again at the modules offered in the special term, and I'm underwhelmed again. Maybe now I'll just take like 2 modules or something, especially maybe that USP module on 'emerging global politics' which I hope it will be about what it says and not some specific case study once more, and something else, which I can't see yet.

Anyway, what inspired the post was this diagram that I drew of the ideas that were in my head, ideas that basically revolved around how the sciences and the humanities were connected. So there was this whole mess of lines and words...

Which brings me to my interest now. Trying to learn Java so I can make my own programme to illustrate this mental map in a digital sense, and being able to manipulate it, zoom into it, and see how ideas are connected to one another. And now I can't really learn Java due to some cock-up with my com, hope to get the problem fixed after I get my laptop.

Anyhow, there is an emerging connectedness between myriad branches of academic disciplines. Research into brain science is converging with ethics - the processes that are going on in our brains everytime we make an ethical judgement. Research in networks has led to breakthroughs in economics, neuroscience, ecology, among others. The academic world is abuzz with interdisciplinary talk.

I only hope NUS might be an epicenter of such buzz in Singapore...

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Twilight Industries

In our world today, I think this quote is true: Anything that isn’t digitised will eventually die out.

Well, obviously historians will be very much bothered by this. In their museums, they have relics from a time way before computers. So what gives me justification to say something like that?

Well, in our present day, especially in Singapore, there are whole varieties of cultural artefacts that will slowly become extinct, becoming only tourist exhibits, to be seen and no longer experienced. And today, these cultural artefacts are disappearing before our very eyes.

The reason that I’m talking about only Chinese cultural artefacts is because I’m most familiar with them. I’m talking about the Chinese temples, lion dances, getais, puppet shows, Chinese Operas, and other aspects of traditional Chinese art.

To just state generally what these things are, these are remnants of the culture that our immigrant forefathers brought with them as they came to Singapore. These things are essentially pieces of cultural China that they brought with them. You might be thinking, since these arts are still flourishing in China, why should we bother about preserving them in Singapore? That’s a rather good question, and I think that my attempt to answer them will be rather pitiful and fall far short of an actual justification.

Yes, these arts are still flourishing in China. That’s why performing troupes from China come down to Singapore regularly for some art performance or another. The reason that I want to highlight this little cultural nugget is because these artefacts of culture represent an immense treasure trove with which we could redefine Singapore’s identity.

I’m not an artist, nor am I a student of art history, which makes me rather unqualified to make statements like these. But I feel that the old parts of Singapore, both intangible and tangible, should be thrown away that easily just because of their age. We talk of our ‘Asian-ness’ so much that we hardly give attention to what it actually means. Redefining our traditions might be a place to start redefining ourselves.

We should start first and foremost, by going digital, make it available to everyone on the Internet. Set up communities who are dedicated to the preservation of these arts. Have a generation of art students interested in them and allow them to gradually redefine these arts with contemporary interpretation. Have national recognition for traditional arts and recreations. Better yet, suggest how these traditions can be revitalised today. Can we fuse them with Western ideals?

For those who didn’t know, Curse of the Golden Flower, yes – that movie with jay Chou and Gong-Li’s boobs – was actually a rehashing of a play written by a Chinese playwright written in 1934. The message is still the same, but the settings have changed, and made for a modern audience. We need more mishmash like that if traditional arts are going to have a foothold in our iPOD era.

I was at a temple this morning, supposedly to give respects to ancestors and all the usual traditional Chinese thing. It then struck me, what will happen to all these if, supposedly, everyone believes in the Christian God? What will happen to all these structures? They represent a great cultural wealth - as art to be appreciated maybe...

Thats for something else. There are really just so much to be seen, felt, experienced in Singapore...

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the idea that i've been having about singapore...

I guess I never really revealed the bigger picture that I've been having for a long time in my head. I talk about environmental change, social change, education, Singapore, external challenges and all, but I've always done it in bit pieces - every topic in isolation, without regard for its context with respect to many other things. A few days ago I had this epiphany that it would be simpler for my life and others, if I'd just tell them what is exactly on my mind. So here it is:

I am afraid for Singapore.

Now why am I afraid? Simply because of India and China. Their growth will be THE story of our time, of the 21st century. But what will it mean for Singapore? It means a loss of relevance in the world, the loss of relevance to China and India. What happens, around 2050, when China and India become fully developed? What will happen to Singapore?

What's happening now.

Singapore is trying to position itself as a point of entry into China's markets. That is losing its point, because investors can just stream into China directly, bypassing Singapore totally. We are exporting public administration to Chinese government officials - but in time, they will establish their very own Zhu Rong Ji Institute of Public Policy, so even LKYSPP will lose its shine. We are using exporting our developing model for their industries and economy as a whole, but in time, they won't need it, when they're done learning our lessons. They will eventually find their own way, and we'll be left in the dust of their development.

The only hope then is that we would have moved on in our development.

But how?

The only way to do that is to INNOVATE, and I cannot emphasize itself. We need an education system and a society that encourages innovation, and does it by the truckload.

My friend, Shaun, and I agree, that Singapore is really good at being efficient and sometimes, adaptable. Because we are small, we can push through with projects faster than almost any other country. That is something we need to keep. Our education system is superb at churning efficient people - and that's a good thing too. We are very good at doing the things TODAY, but we suck seriously at innovating.

The main point is, we need visionaries - people who can see beyond today's situations and anticipate what lies ahead in the future, and create innovations for tomorrow - not just incremental changes, but something radical, even game changing, something disruptive, like the Internet, the wheel, the iPod, and more...

And more importantly, we need to link visionaries with the efficient people that we have today. We need to be fast at what we do, and at the same time, to be able to innovate something completely new. We need a society that can nurture visionaries and match them with the suitable efficient people to create innovations that will keep Singapore just that little bit ahead. If we start now, we will enjoy another say, 20 years of growth, before China and India match up with us again. Until then, what?

Thats for the next generation to think, and we have to prepare them for that moment. Meanwhile, we have challenges like sustainable growth, urban planning, and all... SIngapore needs to seriously innovate, and come up with sustainable models for future growth - how do we retrofit our buildings to become eco-friendly, cradle-to-cradle style...

and an idea that can help make the innovative, dynamic society into reality...

and an IDEA CAFE!!! now that would be great! a place where people could talk freely about their ideas, get together and discuss them, and maybe even come up with something...

forgot to add that the Ideas Cafe will be different, because when people are discussing, they will decide whether they want people to just come in and contribute to a discussion... and then hopefully, this will allow different people to meet each other and come up with immense synergy they can take to... whatever their dreams take them...???

then we can set up a community, where people can continue their discussions online and further develop their ideas into full-blown projects of potential social change - all these for changing the social landscape of singapore into something really more dynamic than what i have here.

It does not need a new cafe, any cafe today can implement these things if they want to...

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ten years

I was looking at the young people in my neighbourhood today, and started talking to them for a very short while... and after that I went back home and I thought of something.

Ten years ago, people my age would have hardly the opportunities that I have today. I expect that ten years on, people my age would have opportunities I can hardly imagine today. So I think one of the challenges is, how do we prepare our young people for those opportunities that would otherwise blow our minds today?

Ten years on, we'll see even more innovations about the social-technosphere, and more opportunities for growth. Then... what will we do with our young people?

What kind of education will exist for them? How will the social landscape look like? How will the world have changed? Will the education catch up with the global transformations by then? Will our young people be ready for all these?

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Innovation from a previous age

Was at this conference about start-ups and alternative energy. There were 5 men seating as panelists and a crowd of people with money in their eyes, all trying to catch ways to earn money and strike it rich youtube-style, you know, the kind where eventually you hope to see your company to google and earn billions.

Which is...

I won't be judgemental this time, but let me just say that, well, this kind of conferences, discussions, and all... they seem rather, old, like we're still stuck in the previous generation of talking about enterprises and start-ups. The dot-com boom was like, ten years ago, and I would like to believe that we have moved on since.

I don't think its possible to discuss 'alternative energy' by itself, and even when you're thinking about bio-diesel (which has its own conceptual problems) or solar power, I think that all the same, we're still in this stupid mindset. I think that in reality there is really a really large issue and where opportunities are really all just there. It's whether we are capable of this imagination to actually see these opportunities. The field I'm talking about is sustainability, building bright green cities and all. How do you turn Singapore green? How do you implement things like cradle to cradle concepts - everything from alternate energy to matierials recycling, and reusing them for top-quality products - how do you design pollutant-free products - all of these, will become vital for the future, yet there is scarcely anyone in Singapore looking at them. And I think, this is a tragedy...

Oh, and something from yesterday... the thought of chronicling Singapore's green spaces and and cool buildings, and then further on to see how Singapore could develop to become a sustainable Bright Green City that is able to minimize its impact on the environment as well as letting people feel more satisfied about the environment...

It's going to take more than bio-diesel to change our consumption...

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after watching too many ted videos...

My 'TED' wish, is to set up a TED community in NUS. This community will come together to share ideas, about the things they are passionate about, and it'll be held like every month or so at some lecture theatre there. This thing will be entirely voluntary, the most difficult thing is to publicise this thing.

Anyway, here's something else - its slightly bigger and many more times more ambitious. My second 'TED' wish is to transform Singapore into a leading edge global city that does not merely want to catch up to other cities, but carve a place for itself in the world. Get what I mean? Its going to be about technological literacy, getting more tech companies to set up centres here, not just for marketing, but for research and all.

Here are some ideas - consolidate our education system - education should be more dynamic, not only restricted to schools, and teachers should not be limited to the classroom. Give our teachers more space to do their work. Who joins the teaching profession to do things other than teach? Schools should be seen as a public good. We should revise our ranking systems - seems to commercialise schools. Ranking system has become counter-productive. Schools emphasize ranking over the education of their students - which sucks for our kids. What we need may only be some indicators of areas schools are good at.

If the children of a village in Peru can all have laptops, why can't we do the same? OLPC!

Implement the open-source learning for teachers (from TED).

We cannot just mouth words like 'innovation' and 'creative'. Watching TED videos have seriously revitalised my belief in the power of innovate and create. but in order to do either, we must first open up ourselves to possibilities. I believe Singapore can be a cutting edge city. Do others believe? The world will move faster and faster....

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