Read the essay

Life is never a bed of roses and I am constantly reminded of that. Although things look to be picking up this year, there are always the inevitable disappointments just around the corner. I am referring to the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Economics Society of Singapore Essay competition which Pin and I submitted a joint entry to in 2005. I managed to scrap a decent 1st place in 2003. However, our joint entry last year only gave us 3rd place, even though I felt it was a much better piece.

Although the competition is for university students, and both of us have yet to enter university, I feel that lack of knowledge is a poor excuse. I had let my mind atrophy in the army, and could have done a lot more to brush up on my economics knowledge then. A full analysis of this loss has to be done to see what some of the takeaways are. This can only be done once we have seen the top essay and after we have talked to the judges. Regardless, I can do a lot more to improve on my writing skills and economics knowledge.

Update: Pin feels that we did well considering that the two people ahead of us included two doctoral students and one MAS scholar. He thinks an appropriate comparison would be with last year winners. However, the topic is very different from last years, as the macro nature of this years topic seems to favors students with a stronger economics background.

Normally, I steer away from time sensitive articles. However, I need to immortalize this moment as I countdown to the last days in Singapore (as a permanent home). In two hours, I will pick up my visa for studies in America, and collect my plane ticket to Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul. In nine days, I will wake up one morning and find myself standing amidst a different landscape.

Getting on that airplane is not the first day of the rest of my life. Rather, it is the first day of this life per se, as I complete the transition into being an international citizen. This process irreversibly began when I was sponsored to attend Wharton’s Leadership in the Business World program so many years ago in high school, and was hastened by the Stanford Book Prize trip and the two over years of forced conscription without opportunity for conscientious objection. Those two years were a transition period, where time froze and no one appears to have changed. It was only when I was overseas blending assimilating into the indigenous culture that I realized what I had truly become and what I could be.

I will be spending summers in different places every year for the next four years. In a way, I am again living a transition phase – there is no permanency in this kind of life. I grow close to friends over an intense period of bonding, and then I never see them again for four, five or six years if ever. But this time, it will be a phase marked by dynamic growth, rather than the stagnancy that resulted from the movement restrictions I had as a conscript.

I really look forward to meeting my friends in Taiwan, Japan and Korea again. There, I am unencumbered by my recent past, or the baggage of a political and social culture I am alienated from yet forced to accept. I am so happy that I wish to run around screaming, or jump onto that sofa in Pacific Coffee halfway through my Korean language self-study lesson. I look at the calendar and smile to myself. Nine days left.

Its 12 midnight and I just got back from my evening jog. I would love to run more, and earlier if my schedule was a little less punishing, or if I could procrastinate less.

Although I am active and decent at most sports, my small physique means that I am disadvantaged. I can pull a lot more pull-ups than the average Singaporean, but I owe that to my incredibly low weight and insane muscle to fat ratio. My absolute strength is puny, and games like squash or tennis at competition levels are beyond me.

However, I love distance running. To me, it is an activity that relies more on mental rather than physical reserves. I love the feeling when I run so hard, so fast and so far until my lungs start to burn, my mouth dries up as I gasp greedily for air and my thighs begin to ache. Then they no longer matter. They do not exist. I become an entity separate from my body; a consciousness moving through time and space. My legs move rhythmically - mechanically.

And then I reach the finishing line. I stop. My stomach cramps up and I almost vomit. Every cell on my body throbs as if they were individually grasping for air. I love that feeling back in my final year in high school, when for the first time in my life, I knew that I had put every last bit of reserves into my run and knew that I could never run a better run. I came away with the feeling that I had walked to the edge of my potential, and it was a reward that was far superior to the trophy my school gave me for my efforts.

As I count down to my final day in Singapore, I decided to exorcise one ghost of the past.

Gayle Goh recently wrote an interesting article on Singapore’s elitist educational system where students are streamed at elementary schools and given different amount of resources according to their perceived potential.

I came from a very normal primary school, before heading to a neighborhood (i.e. lowly ranked public school) middle school. Thus, her article reminded me of how I chafed at the hierarchal nature of the education system then, a resentment that grew when I entered an [supposedly] ‘elite’ high school and learnt how different the education system had been for my friends from elite schools. While they flew to Shanghai to study Chinese, or visited top universities in the US, my school sent us to nearby Malacca, a trip that was eventually cancelled anyway due to lack of budget. While we were told not to ask questions out of the syllabus as it was ‘a waste of time’, my friends were exploring philosophy in their posh private school setting.

However, most denigrating was the occasional and unintentional snide remarks by our teachers (some from the elite gifted program). “Oh! If you study hard and do well, maybe you can enter [local] university!” For my elite counterparts, it was a question of which top overseas university they would enter, not whether they would enter university. I remember my form teacher’s surprise when she learnt that Ganesh, one of the students in my class, scored a high enough grade at elementary school to qualify for a top private school. She cried, “why did you come here! It’s a waste of your talent.”

It was not just the quality of education that made a difference, but also the baggage of an implicit class status and stigma of being a neighborhood student. Perhaps I am being overly-sensitive, but during my interviews for US universities, I was frequently quizzed by my interviewers (government scholars from elite middle and high schools, of course!) on the schools I studied at. There was always this moment of awkwardness when I mentioned my middle school and my interviewer would freeze up, as if they had something to say (based on their assumption of my middle school) and my answer had thrown them off-track.

However, I am particularly glad that this resource disadvantage taught me initiative. I had to create my own opportunities since no one would lay a nice defined path for me to follow. There was no fate for me, and the future is thrown into uncertainty, but it is at the same time more exciting and promising. In this way, it inevitably led to the dilution of my culture, as I rapidly made friends overseas and assimilated into the cultures of whatever place I was in. I knew then that my future was in the world and not in Singapore.

Two more weeks left and I will join my friends in Taipei and Seoul, and who knows what next.

The abstract for my World Bank Presentation:

Business as usual is not the solution to development challenges. Rather, I propose an unusual business-nonprofit mix of capabilities as an answer. In Section 1, I argue that the nonprofit and private sectors frequently possess overlapping aims and complementary core capabilities. These allow them to provide integrated solutions that move beyond the philanthropic or transactional stage of cross-sector interactions. However, the different incentives and approaches driving each sector create a culture clash between them. This roadblock to cooperation must be overcome with a ‘bridge’ - a neutral external agent.

In Section 2 and 3, I draw from my experience in setting up ArtIntern, a project dedicated to helping youths become arts entrepreneurs, to advocate the suitability of social entrepreneurs to the role of ‘bridges’. To create extraordinary value, the social entrepreneur must restrict his or her functions to his or her core competency in three regions of innovation: identifying new needs, crafting new solutions and implementing them with new combinations of resources. The first two regions of innovation tap into the localized knowledge that social entrepreneurs possess. The third is achieved through a capability sourcing strategy that taps the core competencies of the private and nonprofit sectors. Thus, the sectors are bridged as part of a strategy adding high value to development outcomes.

In Section 4, I emphasize how this framework is particularly relevant to youths, as it taps their primary strengths and compensates for their core weaknesses. I explain how youth activists are likely to possess an embarrassment of localized knowledge that gives them an innovative edge. I also elaborate how the capability sourcing strategy helps them overcome their lack of experience-derived skills, which gives me optimism towards the role which youths can play in the future of development.

A truncated version of the annual update which I send to my friends. Please update me on what you are doing and where you are at these days as I believe in keeping in touch with my friends, who are dear to me.

A Brief Recap of the Past Year

For the past year, I have been serving compulsory military service full-time in Singapore, working on knowledge management strategies in my unit. Outside of the army, I managed to work as an economics research assistant to Manu Bhaskaran at Centennial Group, an economics consultancy focused on Asian economies. I also helped set up TYEM Academy, a nonprofit school for school dropouts. I finished with military service recently and have been engaged as a full-time research staff at Centennial Group since.

I am also glad to have been sponsored to attend the APEC Youth Summit in Seoul, Korea in August 2005 and the World Business Dialogue in Cologne, Germany in April 2005. I had great memories at both places and really enjoyed meeting new friends, whom I dearly miss now.

Going Forward

In September this year and for the next four years, I will be at the University of Pennsylvania/ Wharton School studying International Studies and Business in the Huntsman program. I hope to use this opportunity to conduct research on the development issues of poverty and human rights that are my passions, as well as on the development of emerging markets in Asia and the interaction between business and development. Drop me a note if you are ever in Philadelphia, USA!

From 26 May to 30 May, I will be in Tokyo, Japan on World Bank sponsorship to present my ideas on how social entrepreneurs can bridge the private-nonprofit divide in development at the World Bank’s Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics. After that, I will head to Taipei until 22 June to meet up with friends living there (and to brush up on my Chinese), before staying in Seoul for seven weeks (until 7 August) to work on my Korean language by trading English for Korean tuition. I might head to Bangkok or Vietnam in August before term starts, depending on my schedule.

Long Term Forecasts

Although plans might change, these are some of my longer-term dreams:

I hope to work in India next summer, as it has given birth to some of my most admired economists in development studies (e.g. Amartya Sen) and because it provides an interesting model for studying the interaction of democracy and poverty alleviation. In 2007 or 2008, I will study in China (to fulfill my Huntsman foreign studies requirement) and stay on to work in the country for the summer. I will probably graduate in 2010, and am unlikely to return to Singapore except for a brief holiday (so to all Singaporean friends, do drop me a mail if you want to meet up before I leave!).

Update: I have also been featured on Social Enterprise blog Audeamus as a Social Enterprise Great Read!

I will be heading to Tokyo to present my idea on how social enterprise can bridge the private-public sector divide in development at the World Bank’s Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics! I am so happy, not just because of the all expenses paid trip and substantial cash prize, but also because I have a wonderful opportunity to present at the Bank’s biggest annual event, share my ideas, and hopefully net myself an opportunity to work for them.

Dear Nicola, Oikono, Cauam, Sarita, Jefferson, Ankai and Mansour,

We are happy to inform you that your essay has been selected from among nearly
2000 submissions from 136 countries, as one of the 7 best (one more finalist
will still join the group). Congratulations, you are the finalists of the International Essay
Competition 2006!

As you know, you will be invited to attend the final jury during the ABCDE
Conference in Tokyo on May 29-30. During the finals, you will be asked to shortly present your essay to the juries and answer a few questions - from the juries and other finalists.

In a few days’ time you will be contacted by our colleagues from Tokyo who will
help you with your travel. They will buy the ticket fand send to you. You will be asked to go to the nearest Japanese embassy or consulate and apply for a visa to enter Japan (except Nicola and Geoffrey who do not need a visa) - you will receive a formal letter from us to present at your visa appointment.

Once again, congratulations! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards,
Anna

Anna Kuznicka
Development Policy Dialogue
World Bank, External Affairs
66, Avenue d’Iena
75116 Paris, France

http://www.worldbank.org/rad
http://www.worldbank.org/abcde-tokyo

Thanks to Goldman/KKR boy Pin for this article. Daniel A. Bell talks about his experience teaching politics and international studies in China and occasionally contrasts it with his experience teaching in Singapore. His article gives me hope that China will mature politically, accept greater diversity in viewpoints, and eventually become a democratic country. It also makes me excited at my semester abroad requirement for Huntsman, as I look forward to studying at Tsinghua in China, and learn how the locals view politics.

A snippet:

In comparison, China is a paradise of academic freedom. Among colleagues, anything goes (in Singapore, most local colleagues were very guarded when dealing with foreigners). Academic publications are surprisingly free: there aren’t any personal attacks on leaders or open calls for multiparty rule, but particular policies, such as the household registry system, which limits internal mobility, are subject to severe criticism. In 2004, state television, for the first time in history, broadcast the U.S. presidential elections live, without any obvious political slant. (I suspect that the turmoil surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, along with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, discredited U.S.-style democracy among many Chinese, and the government has less to fear from the model.) More surprisingly, perhaps, I was not given any explicit (or implicit, as far as I could tell) guidance regarding what I could teach at Tsinghua. My course proposals have been approved as submitted.”

I finished reading Jagdish Bhagwati’s ‘In Defense of Globalization’. By and large, I am supportive of globalization although not without qualifications. Having lived (and suffered) through the Asian Financial Crisis, I am able to temper my optimistic support for globalization with knowledge of the possible fallout such a process can bring.

Some of my choice quotes which I wish to note down -

Jagdish: “they still have under funded the WTO to a degree invoking Scrooge rather than Soros”

Jagdish quoting John Maynard Keynes: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

This is something I have always cautioned friends about. Years ago, I used to think of myself as a practical person untouched by the ‘ivory tower’ of academia. But I now realize that academia and action are inextricably linked, and that strong outcomes are driven by good theoretical grounding, not mindless work.

Jagdish quoting Seymour Martin Lipset’s (1959) Some Social Requisites of Democracy: “Lipset’s argument was that economic development led to democratization via the mediating effect of “social development” in the form of increased education, social equality and changes in class structure. His thesis has been oversummarized as the commonly held notion that increasing economic prosperity brings about a middle class that seeks political participation and thus democratization.”

That economic growth should bring democracy is a hypothesis that always fascinated me, especially since I used to live in a country that is the exception to that rule. Thus, I was surprised to chance upon the actual theory.

A problem with my work flow that I am resolving is that I tend to jump into the work without proper planning. While this gives the satisfaction of accomplishing small tasks readily and quickly, more often than not, I realized at the end that I could do the task more efficiently if I took time to develop a mental picture of the work that has to be done and how I can accomplish it.

Planning requires knowledge of the objective (and its parameters) and the resources at hand. Knowing what I am to achieve allows me to decide if there are any shortcuts, and the specific data which I require, preventing me from meandering in a mess of information overload. Equally important is the setting of parameters. There is little point to overworking on certain areas when they add little to the eventual outcome. One way to achieve this is to dedicate a limited set of resources (e.g. time) to each mini-objective, and use this pressure to draw the boundaries.

Having a clear picture of the resources at hand will enable me to know which resource will provide the best data for my purpose. For example, I might find an incomplete set of data on one site, and spend a lot of time looking at the site, when a more complete set of data could be found on another site. Or I might read the entire economic plan of a country when simply reading the summary will suffice. Such errors result in duplicated effort, with little results to show.

Addenum: Bernstein, in Against the Gods, wrote that procrasination has a time value. As we procrasinate, we are able to gather more information, allowing us to reduce some of the risks involved in making a decision. Thus, jumping in too quickly is not always a good idea.