a mutating thought

There is an idea that I have that is continually evolving. This time, it's about information flows of an individual, and even mapping the day to day decisions of what an individual does. The question that I want to ask is, can you map out the information flows of a person in everyday life?

I think somehow, I'm rather interested in information flows, at the intersection of different areas of knowledge and subjects, and trying to grasp synergies between different areas of knowledge. I think that would be the key challenge of our time, to be able to make new connections between different disciplines, to be able to flow from one field to another.

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Read a lot

I've been reading again, this time about the balance of power in the world today, and there isn't really much anyway, just the same power games of interests. Not much has changed, but then again, everything has changed in the world, and it's fun to be caught up in how everything is moving but then again, you withdraw from it and realise that you've learnt nothing new, just the same old things re-manifested and resurfacing in our present day.

The thing that strikes me most is that there are so many gaps to be filled in terms of perspectives and worldviews, and despite the plethora of current affairs and political writers, there is such a dearth of writing that links climate change to the changing political dynamics of the world. And there isn't anything at the intersection of emerging technologies and politics too.

I think this is where I might find a niche for myself in this information ecology, of thinkers and writers. And I'm going to try out these concepts in USP. If it doesn't work, I'll just stick to concocting chemicals.

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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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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