Profiled by Natalee Ho

“No balls, no babies” – Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks

John Tan

Principal of Orita Sinclair School of Design, Co-Founder of Frolick and Black Coffee Bar
Age: 29
Website: http://www.orita-sinclair.edu.sg/

With his wild, curly hair, John Tan could easily pass off as the front man of an indie band. His hair, however, is the loudest part about him; even when he speaks it is a slow, quiet drawl, interspersed with mild smiles and keen eyes. John’s pensive demeanour belies a man of action – an alumnus of the Chinese High School and University College London, John was the co-founder of the successful frozen yoghurt chain Frolick and artisan coffee bar Black. These enterprises successfully integrate design and enterprise, with Frolick taking on a cheeky, youth oriented vibe (just look at their website: http://www.frolick.com.sg/) and Black (http://www.thisisblack.com.sg/) appropriating a style both chic and retro.

After leaving these projects, he went on to helm the Orita Sinclair School of Design, a boutique design school that offers diplomas and short courses for art, design and new media. The school boasts a faculty of practicing industry professionals with their eyes on the real world – classes are designed to build and grow the students’ portfolios, and equip them with an understanding of how the industry functions. Although Orita Sinclair is currently still focused on traditional modes of design, John plans to expand its curriculum to include technology as well as entrepreneurship.

At the end of our interview, John offers to walk me to my next appointment, and I gratefully oblige. It is a quiet walk, and he seems perfectly at home in the sleepy, quaint surroundings of Arab Street in the late afternoon. He is a man who has finally found his element.

You graduated with a degree in Economics from University College London – how did you get involved in so many other things not related to economics?

Yeah it wasn’t planned…I think a lot of things in life don’t go according to plan, and that’s great. We should just let things happen. I studied economics because it was the one subject I was good at in junior college, and it was somewhat relevant to what my dad wanted me to do, which was banking. I did economics, and then I got sold on consulting. I was sold by the whole idea of strategy and telling CEOs what to do.

After a couple of years I felt that I wanted to do something more meaningful, because consulting involves spending a lot of your time doing Excel models and Powerpoint slides, but at the end of the day very little actually gets done. I just felt that I wanted to do something where I could see tangible outcome. When I was in consulting, a couple of my Chinese High friends wanted to run a start-up. In Singapore, if you want to be an entrepreneur, the first thing you would look at is the Food and Beverage industry because it is the easiest. So we started Frolick. That’s how I got into design, because for Frolick, my role was to engage the design firm and work with the designers. Before that, I had no design training and no inclination towards design, but I really enjoyed the process of working with the designers and conceptualizing the brand.

After a while I left Frolick, because to me, the fun part is in the conceptualization. After that, the running of a yoghurt shop is just not that interesting. Black was my second start-up. I did it for a few months, and then I realised I really didn’t like the F and B industry. So I left Black, and bummed around for a few months. I was looking for a new project, and then the opportunity came along to buy over this school. At that point I had already worked with designers on 2 different projects, and I was fairly interested in design. So I thought it would be cool to run a design school.

So what exactly is Orita Sinclair?

It’s a boutique design school. It was started in 2002, by a couple. She was a design educator and he was an artist, so they came together and started this school. When I took over the school it was really just a design school, in the sense that its focus was purely on graphic design and animation. After a year and a half, I figured that design was not really the direction that I wanted the school to go in. Even though graphic design and branding is interesting, it is quite limited in terms of making positive change. And this is what I’m interested in – I’m really interested in making positive change. Or in producing students who can make positive change. As a graphic designer, the work that you do is very limited by what you know. You can only make static images; you can’t really make things work. That kind of made me want to change the direction of the school to start looking at technology and entrepreneurship. If you put a designer, a tech guy, and an entrepreneur in a room, you get the best of everything. These three guys can make something really wonderful. That’s my vision for the school. To move to technology and entrepreneurship. I’m not a techie myself, and I don’t know programming. But I’m really interested in what technology can do. I think technology is a tool to make positive change. In order to do that, you need to have a designer, who can create a wonderful user experience, and you need to have an entrepreneur, who can think of an idea and be resourceful enough to execute the idea.

What courses does Orita Sinclair offer as of now?

Creative writing, typography, packaging…these are all fairly common modules within a graphic design programme. But we are launching a new diploma, which is in interaction design. When we use the word “design” today, people think of graphic design, fashion design or interior design, but if you’re familiar with the start-up scene, you’ll realise that a lot of start-ups are looking for interaction designers. What interaction designers do is basically figure out what the best user interface or user experience for a service or product is. Facebook is the best example. You may have the programmer who can code the whole website, but at the end of the day, you need to be able to make the user spend time on the website and share information. That’s basically the interaction designer’s job. To figure out what is the best user experience such that he or she will spend more time on the site or the product.

That sounds great. Is there a course like that in other schools right now?

In Singapore, not really. I think Republic Poly has a similar programme called Design for interactivity, but typically an interaction design programme would be a Masters programme. Whereas what we’re offering is a diploma programme. From there I want to start introducing more programming classes, and then finally entrepreneurship classes. Maybe I’ll teach the entrepreneurship classes myself. 

What can you actually teach in entrepreneurship classes? Can entrepreneurship really be taught?

That’s a good question. I think it’s not so much a technical course, not so much how to do entrepreneurship. There is no how, but there is why. Why you should do it. If you work in a big company, you are typically pigeonholed in a very specific role, and for you to be able to make an impact on the organization, you have to climb up the ranks, and that takes many years. I feel that if you want your work to have an impact, the best way is to run your own show. So that’s one reason.

The second reason is that work takes up so much of your time. You might as well love what you do. And I think that not many people who are employees truly love what they do. They may love their work, but besides their work, they have to deal with a lot of other things because they’re part of an organization. Whereas when you’re an entrepreneur you get to decide how you want the organization to be run, what the culture should be. For these reasons, I think entrepreneurship is attractive.

An entrepreneurship class could perhaps also teach people to accept failure. Which I think is pretty crucial, especially in an Asian context, where failure is pretty frowned upon. In the US, some firms actually look at how many times you have failed when they decide to invest in your start-up. To them, failure is a good thing. You fail, you learn from your past failures and then you move on. And that is not so accepted here.

So have you failed before?

I can’t say that any of my start-ups have been very successful, but I guess I haven’t really failed either. You just got to keep pushing yourself to get out of your comfort zone, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do. My favourite quote is from Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks. He said, “No balls, no babies”. You really have to go for it.

What separates Orita Sinclair from other design schools?

Aside from the interaction design programme that’s coming up, we also currently have an Apprenticeship Programme. We looked at how design should be taught, and we asked ourselves whether being in a classroom environment and listening to a lecturer was really the best way to learn design. And we figured, probably not. So we decided to try this apprenticeship programme, where the student actually comes in and works as an apprentice to 2 creative directors. We set up our own studio in the school. It’s not a real studio in the sense that we don’t have real, fee-paying clients, but what we do have is a simulated environment. The apprentice, rather than going for class, would just come in and start working on projects. So it’s really like how he or she would work in a real studio. We hope that at the end of the 7 months, the apprentices will pick up skills through on-the-job training and “learning by doing”, so that when they join a design studio, they can start producing work by day one. Because when you take a design graduate and you put them in a studio, they have no idea how the design studio works, and it takes some time before they can actually create anything. Our apprenticeship programme is our way to try to shortcut the learning process.

Are there any more things you want to do?

I want to be more involved in the start-up scene, particularly tech start-ups. That could be Orita Sinclair part 2. Part 1 is us being a school, where design, entrepreneurship and technology intersect. Part 2 could be Orita Sinclair the incubator. Maybe we could start a seed fund and fund start-ups. I mean, I’m just throwing ideas out for now.

Has the experience of studying overseas affected your view of life? If so, in what way?

Honestly, I would have liked to stay in London but I couldn’t get a job. Going overseas definitely changed my outlook on a lot of things. Singapore is so comfortable, and everything works. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the world revolves around Singapore. And I think that really is a problem, especially for young people who have not lived overseas. Their perspective on things is very, very parochial. I think that limits what they think they can achieve. It’s very hard to articulate. But going to London definitely changed me.

If you could go back in time, what would you have done differently?

If I could go back in time, I would have studied computer science. I would have learnt programming. I would have made a more conscious effort at being interested in technology. I think that’s what took a long time to realise. If you want to make positive change, technology is the best tool you can have. And because I’m not as savvy, I feel handicapped.

I’m actually thinking of doing a programming school for kids. I remember when I was 10 or 11, my mom actually sent me to a programming class, but I basically had no idea what I was I doing. (laughs) I have a vision for a new kind of programming school. A programming school where kids can actually see the end result of what they’re doing. Where kids are actually excited about going for class. I think that if there’s one thing the government should introduce into the education system, it’s programming. Make it interesting, and design a class such that the students don’t learn it because they want to get good grades. They learn because they want to figure out how to make things work. I think if we have a new breed of entrepreneurs who are tech savvy and are genuinely interested in making things work better, then we have a shot at coming up with something that would change the world. The same way Google changed the word, or Facebook changed the world, or Amazon changed the world.

Do you have any advice for the younger people of Singapore?

Stay curious. The moment you stop being curious is the moment you stop developing as a person. Stay curious about everything that’s going on around you, don’t be afraid to explore and try new things. I always believe that you don’t know until you try. And be interested in technology, because it’s really a very powerful tool to make an impact.

It’s where the future lies.

It really is, it really, really is.

Profiled by Lim Zi Song

“An artist touches his “work” when he is stricken by inspiration, when the “muse” alights upon his shoulder, when the stars are aligned. Like the artist, a craftsman has knowledge and passion and skill and experience, but he also picks up his tools every day and gets busy. Semantics, yes, but we believe that they are important to how we approach our work. Every day, we strive to be the best craftsmen we can be.” – Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten

Veerapan Swaminathan

Co-Founder, Sustainable Living Labs(SL2)
Age: 26
Website: https://www.facebook.com/sl2square

Veerapan Swaminathan is the co-founder of Sustainable Living Lab (SL2), a semi-outdoor community lab and prototyping facility that enables local innovators, students and companies to serve their communities and the bottom-of-the-pyramid better. SL2 is integrated with the Ground-Up Initiative community.

SL2 runs apprenticeship programs for youth and juvenile delinquents to nurture the spirit of ground-up innovation. They also conduct humanitarian simulation and teach prototyping (mechanical & electrical) as well as innovation techniques (futures, systems, gamification and design thinking) to schools and companies. The lab uses discarded or sustainable materials such as waste wood, bamboo, fire hoses and cardboard to conceptualize, design and manufacture products locally.

How did SL2 come about?

I joined GUI in February 2010 but the idea for sustainable living lab began sometime when I was year 2[in NUS]. We wanted to do our own projects, but it was difficult to get lab access; and there was a lot of inter-department rivalry so the resources one could get was quite limited. That was frustrating to us because at that time, we were trying to do a project for a competition organised by UNESCO. We were trying to develop a solar fruit drying system to dry the fruits. We were collaborating with Mumbai University in India. It was a pretty long project; taking a grand total of one and a half years. And in the course of the project, we had difficulties when we were trying to run experiments. That was when the problem surfaced- there was a lack of space for such experimentation and tinkering. This was also the point in time when we were doing a lot of projects outside our curriculum. The reason was because I did not do so well in my first semester. So, getting a first class honours was mathematically out of the question. I had to look at other things; and it became a period of reflection – was it just about getting first class honours? Was it just about getting a job?  And I realized, that kind of life did not appeal to me. So I decided that I should do things that interested me. Ibnur and Huei Ming were my classmates then and became one of my earliest collaborators. Together with a bunch of other friends, we started working together. We had and continue to have a great team and this will be our sixth year together!

We were basically trying to gain some hands-on experience in “real engineering” and we designed and built a lot of stuff. Halfway through that, we realized that we needed a space for us and others to do these sorts of things more consistently. In my third year [as an undergraduate], I went over to Silicon Valley and we carried on participating in many projects. I was there for a year and Ibnur was my roommate there. I worked for a biomedical company and helped in their intellectual property department filing patents and also spent time building advanced medical devices in the engineering department.  When I came back, we wanted to start a club- then called a “prototyping club”, where it would be a space for people to come and build things. In the US they had Techshops­, which were public access workshops that anyone could enter to build whatever they wanted. This was especially important when individual innovators didn’t have the specific equipment or garage space to do their projects.

There is an established “garage culture” in the US, which we do not have in Singapore. The prototyping lab was supposed to bring over some of that culture – we call it the “kampung culture”. As for SL2 that you see over here, it is the third iteration of the “prototyping club”. Ibnur, Huei Ming and I tried it once, but it didn’t work out so well. We got all the people together and then decided what to do and some of them didn’t quite like the projects we had planned. The second time we tried it, we moved a bit too slowly, and didn’t give people enough things to do, and failed as well.

We realized that we needed a space. The two times that didn’t work out was due to various reasons, including the student environment, when everyone had other priorities. There was a lack of a supportive community. Furthermore, we were just making stuff, and we didn’t have a purpose. And I think people value purpose, and when they couldn’t see it, their motivations also suffered.

Why did you decide to be part of GUI?

Ibnur and I came to GUI as volunteers, with the intention of setting up SL2 in GUI after a chance meeting with Xu Hong who shared about the space and its spirit. Initially, we wanted one lab in NUS, and another over here [at GUI], but eventually settled for a lab at GUI only.

The reason we stayed was because of the purpose. GUI as a community has a very strong purpose. And also, over here at GUI, we have a very supportive community. GUI is able to attract a very diverse audience, united by a culture of grounded-ness and being hands-on. It defined the community, and this resonated with what Ibnur and I wanted for SL2. And it also gave SL2 a purpose, something which we previously didn’t have. Over at GUI, we have artists, engineers, architects and other professionals working together in a very nice environment. Furthermore, GUI was looking into building up their craftsmanship component, in addition to farming and cooking. A lot of things matched right away, and we had a good feeling about it.

We started a lab here formally in July 2011 and we decided that we wanted it to nurture the spirit of Ground-Up Innovation. Just as The Valley has its garage culture, we want to build a kampung culture. I think this is necessary in many places.

Is it because of the lack of innovation in this region?

You may have heard the phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention”. But when we started working with different communities some with very dire needs in Indonesia, India, Cambodia and Vietnam, we started questioning, why aren’t the communities with the most pressing needs developing their own solutions?

Could it be because these countries have a lack of resources?

Evidently there are a number of reasons, including lack of resources, lack of exposure to new ideas, and even a lack of opportunities, et cetera. We have since decided to make nurturing the spirit of ground up innovation our goal, as we hope to let innovation flourish and for communities to become more self reliant and resilient. We feel that the main reason why ground-up innovation is not flourishing in Singapore is due to the lack of opportunity. There is rarely opportunity. The way innovation is usually done in companies or universities here is characterized by a great deal of silo’ing, red tape, resource hoarding, and people seldom havethe opportunity to see through the entire project cycle – one person will design and another will do the physical or engineering aspects. It is very much segmented. We need the ground-up innovator, to be whatever the situation needs him/her to be and understand both the problem and the solution as a whole.

A ground-up innovator?

An example would be the solar fruit drying project that we did, which won us a UNESCO award in 2006. They supposedly awarded us for our technical solution to a common issue. But when the judges explained to us on why we won, it wasn’t the technical aspect that they focused on, but the total system approach that they were impressed with. Most of the other participants approached the solution as a technical project, but we approached the issue with the mindset that we needed to set up a system. This meant that we had to be sociologists, economists and tough negotiators; we had to know how to fight corruption as well as build stuff. The Indian government gives a guaranteed 70% loan for projects that use renewable or sustainable energy. However, when the farmers [the beneficiaries] went to the office to ask for a loan, they were told that such a scheme did not exist! So we had to sort that out. Members of our team arranged for legal representation to ensure that the paperwork was done properly. Also we realized that no one bought the dried fruit products. So we had to help the farmers find buyers. The farmers also found out that it was more profitable to dry fish than to dry fruit. So we had to help them to modify the system to dry fish. In such situations, you cannot say “I am only trained as a mechanical engineer and cannot do anything else!” That would be ridiculous. We need to be whatever the situation demands us to be. And this seems to be a very alien concept to many people, many Singaporean engineers especially.

Is this because knowledge is very specialized?

Some knowledge is quite specialized but most of it isn’t, especially in a low-tech setting. People tend to think that knowledge, especially technical knowledge, is very specialized but it’s not true. If you think about it, before we became engineers, what were we? Those four years of engineering or other specialized education should not define who we are. We can always learn and pick up new stuff.

I think one of the things that made us [SL2] who we are today is that we did not let the things we did not know stop us.

Could you share more about the apprenticeship programs you have?

The apprenticeship programs are for probationers from MCYS, who serve their community service hours with GUI and by extension SL2. We bring these apprentices through the whole product development process – getting them to design and build things that we use regularly around the kampung or for our key events. Examples include benches, several carnival games, fruit peel drying racks and even wooden signages. I guess we will never really know if these programs have changed them, but we find that some still come back even after the end of their probation. I believe the apprenticeship is useful, and people tend to know what is useful for them.Which is why we have some of the boys coming back and telling us that they would like to learn more from us. We now teach some of them how to tinker with open source electronic kits and even write small bits of code.

So you think that it empowers them?

I don’t think “empower” is the right word. But I think we managed to engage their interest. For most of these youths, they lack a sense of agency, a sense of control over their lives. A lot of what we do, especially with those boys, strives to give them the sense of agency, that the choices they make matter. Back in the pre-industrial era, young people apprenticed to learn a new trade – in this present age, our young charges apprentice with us to learn positive attitudes and develop a sense of agency.

For those who have completed their probation course, we get them to lead the new batch. In fact one of them has gone on to join our team full time.

How do you intend to promote the concept of sustainable living in Singapore through SL2?

I would think the first condition to sustainability is self-sufficiency, and knowing how to build things is a fundamental part of it. Without any kind of Ground-up Innovation spirit or hands on culture, it will be quite hard to get there. Much of the talk about sustainability these days tends to be just that – talk. Over here, we focus a lot on doing/building/making things, and I think this is the first step to promoting sustainability.

It is the sense of agency, once again. Not just in the boys, but everyone else, knowing what you can do and having the ability to create things; to shape your own future. Suddenly, there are no more limits. It’s the sense of empowerment that comes with the knowledge that you too can pick up new things, you too can try out new stuff. That’s quite radical, because while it may be difficult to see this tangibly, your horizon gets that much wider.

Where do you see SL2 in five years’ time?

We hope to be in a few countries, ASEAN countries.

There is a reason behind “ASEAN countries”. Our first project was in India, and we realized that whenever you do projects in other countries, you must be ready to firefight them. So, we didn’t want to be anywhere more than a three hour flight from the country.

Also, we felt that there was a lot of “ASEAN neglect”, and this is the region we are in. So instead of going around, going to places far away, we felt that we should start things closer to home, in our region, with people that we knew. There are lots of issues in this part of the world, systemic issues. So we try and see what we can do for them to help nurture the latent spirit of ground-up innovation within these communities. We may not have the panacea to every single problem out there, but it will go a long way in helping people in this region, so people won’t feel they are powerless. The sense of powerlessness is quite tragic, in my opinion.

We want to come up with an alternative model for innovation. We want the products that come out of the lab to be something that is adoptable and functional – not an invention but an innovation. Every new technology created must add a new function, as my co-founder Ibnur insists. It cannot just be a rehash of existing products, that’s not true innovation.

We feel that people know the problems they face and are in the best position to solve them. At some point in time, they will need some technical knowledge, and in those cases, they will get that, they will learn those things [technical knowledge]. We don’t want people to keep on relying on experts. Experts have their place, but they are not the answer.

What advice would you give to the other innovators out there?

One of the thing you won’t see coming out of SL2 is a consumer product that functions mostly as a status symbol. What you will see is something more socially focused, people focused or nature focused. And quite frankly, I think these are the only things worth making, and everything else is just an add-on to the already pervasive consumerist mentality. So I urge innovators out there to do things with a sense of purpose. It is a lot  more interesting to do innovation with a larger purpose in mind.

Also, innovators need to learn whatever they don’t know, and not let that stop them. You must somehow convince yourself that every problem can be solved. The solution may not be something that requires innovation, but something that requires a system. Just like the solution we had in India. It would have completely failed unless we addressed the issue of corruption; and adapted to the economic context. So innovators should not be too fixated on their domain of expertise, and should instead be whatever the situation demands them to be.

Profiled by Natalee Ho

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.” - Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1846-1912)

Shaun Koh

Social Entrepreneur
Age: 25
Website: http://www.syinc.org/
Email: shaun@syinc.org

The first time I hear of Shaun is during my interview with Bernise (http://weare.sg/syinc-bernise-ang/), when someone inquires after his absence. “Oh he’s out saving a tree near his house or something”, remarks Bernise, offhandedly, like it was the most natural thing in the world. It is with this memory in mind that I wait for Shaun’s arrival outside a burger joint. As a sunglasses-donning man in a V-neck shirt walks up to me, I must admit I am a little surprised – he does not look one bit like the charismatic hippy of my imagination. But charismatic he is, and as we chat he is exuberant, passionate and confident, very much the kind of person with enough chutzpah and heart to try to save a tree.

Having worked with Bernise since Syinc’s conception, Shaun can be considered as one of the founders of Syinc. Started in 2008, Syinc is a non-profit that seeks to empower our youth by developing their capacity to become effective agents of social change. By enabling young founders and community kickstarters to tackle social and human problems from different angles to create new solutions that shift the status quo, Syinc aims to help build a generation of youth with the both the vision and capability to create the change they would like to see in society.

Over the few short years, the organization has continued to grow in scale, and is steadily expanding its operations. If Bernise is the mind behind everything, then Shaun is the energy – he is tireless, fearless and evidently excited about his work with the organization. He is also remarkably eloquent, brimming with sound bites and interesting anecdotes. At the end of our nearly 2-hour interview, I not only have a clearer idea of the organization, but also of the driving force behind these extremely dedicated people. It’s hard not to be infected by his optimism, and what can I say? Change truly is in the air.

What is Syinc about?

We’re looking for young people with crazy ideas to change the world. What we try to do is make those crazy ideas happen. It really takes three things to make something happen – the first one is something that they all come with already. Some people call it passion, but I think the word conviction is a far better term. Conviction has the additional element of knowing that what you’re doing is right, and needs to be done. This is an element that is not such a big deal in most typical enterprises, but the youth that we get in touch with already have the conviction to want to solve a problem in society. Where it trips up is in the next few things, like skills. Sometimes you may not have had enough time to pick up the academic skills necessary, or just the skills that you gain through work experience to actually get stuff done.

So what we do in Syinc is skills building for people. This ranges from indirect things like talking to people and informal mentorship to running skills-based workshops for people, where we teach them design thinking.  Let’s describe the standard model for innovation – you find your target customer, you interview them and you find out exactly what they want. You do “customer service” and at the end of the day you end up with a bunch of metrics that say “oh our customers want it cheaper, or smaller”. And then the next stage of your production is to create something exactly like what is requested. But the biggest problem with that approach can be summed up in one very simple quote. Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”. That is the power of design thinking summed up into one very simple quote. Sometimes when you ask people things, they don’t know how to phrase things in a way that really encapsulates what they want. They would say things like “I want a faster horse” rather than “I want an easier way to get to my destination”. So they articulate a problem, but it’s not well phrased.

Then there are problems that are not articulated at all, that people just accept as part of the status quo. Consumers are great – they’re full of insights, but the ultimate problem is that they don’t have the language or experience to articulate what their real needs are. Hence we try to give the youths we train the skills and insight to see and articulate the real problem.

Because one of the biggest challenges when someone tries to do something for social good is that people sometimes go in and try to rescue people. It’s important that people who try and tackle problems do so not out of sympathy. It’s not because I feel sorry for you, but because I can feel your pain. It’s not about “Oh my God, you poor thing, you don’t have enough money to eat, let me get you some money and raise a fund for you”, it’s about totally understanding where the person you’re trying to help is coming from. You understand, for example, that not only does the person need to solve issues of the lack of money, but also get the feeling of being empowered to do so. That in some sense accepting charity really eats away at your soul, and makes you feel like a terrible person.

The social change and technology sector is much bigger abroad. Why did you choose to stay in Singapore?

When I came back to Singapore, I realised that change was in the air here. Singapore is on the precipice of…something. You feel it right? As a society, we’re really changing. This could either go really well, like a new explosion of creativity and wonderment and awesomeness, or it could go…the other way. I mean if you go to New York, San Francisco or Toronto, yeah they’re really fantastic, everyone’s heard all about them – but they’re not changing that much anymore. Why be part of those environments when you can be somewhere else, where change is happening? Something’s going to happen soon, in these couple of years or less. Cultural change is like a wave. It’s a cultural wave we’re all going through, and we’ve got to learn how to not go against it, and surf it. How that wave turns out for you, whether you just crash and or ride that wave through that tunnel of water and all that crazy shit, really depends on how you navigate that. I’d like to think that people like us in Syinc, we at least understand this whole touchy-feely nonsense of culture. (laughs) It’s not just an academic question, it’s something intuitive, emotional and somewhat spiritual and you have to get it. I’m not trying to say that we have the answers to this, but the first step to trying to figure out how to deal with things in a good way is to get that something is happening here. And a lot of companies, very broadly speaking, are really not super comfortable with that yet. This is why I have to be here in Singapore.

How have you grown with your experience in Syinc?

I’ve learnt a lot along the way. The sheer quantity, and the sheer pressure you produce on yourself to do stuff, really forces a person to grow up and learn, whether it’s in skills or working with people. I can give you an example of the change. In school I was never really a leader, and in Singapore there’s this attitude that you’re either born a leader or you’re not. And I really hated that. Leadership is something that takes experience to get, and sometimes you get it early, sometimes it takes more time to develop. So I actively stayed away from leadership roles; I thought I was a terrible leader that couldn’t do anything. It was a big issue for me.

But in 2010, Syinc organized a conference called Syinconnect, and that was a tipping point for me in terms of how I recognized my own leadership skill. I was in charge of experiential design, but as the preparation progressed things were just not being done. Important decisions regarding logistical stuff were not being made, and I realised that I couldn’t just focus on my artsy fartsy designer-y nonsense anymore. So I decided to step in and pick up the slack. In a way these were training wheels because officially I wasn’t in charge of the work, and it felt more like I was just helping to do some extra parts that they weren’t getting done. Which was really good for me. (laughs) The whole thing culminated in me being the central nervous system of the event on the day itself. As things got more and more stressful the manager just couldn’t take the stress, and that’s when I saw myself step up for the first time, and I discovered I could do this whole leader thing!

Do you have anything or anyone that inspires you personally?

The obvious one would be Steve Jobs. He had a very keen sense for what is right. He was very particular, in a way that some people might even say is pedantic. But what set him apart from other people is that he realized a very simple yet successful concept – build a great product that people really care about. The funny thing about wisdom is that so many people know the right thing to do, but only he, out of all the tech CEOs, had the sheer tenacity and grit to try and make that happen. To not compromise. He had a very uncompromising vision. You might say it’s just an expensive toy, but they genuinely see themselves as pushing the boundaries of what us as human beings can do. They’re genuine and authentic about what they do, and that’s so, so rare in this world. People like to say they’re just really good at selling products, but that’s just not it. The greatest salespeople of all are not sales people. They are evangelists. They are the believers. They believe that what they’re doing is right. That’s where conviction comes in. Conviction, passion, and that twinkle in the eye that is infectious. And it makes you feel good about yourself. It makes you feel like you’ve made an impact on the world.

Although I must say I would like to be a better version of Steve Jobs. That’s what I struggle with daily – when I see things that are not being done as well as they can be…well let’s just say if I was Steve Jobs I would just shoot the person down directly. But I want to find a better way of doing that. I want to possess that same tenacity and uncompromising vision to make stuff, and I admit I am super particular. I’m very good at shooting stuff down. (laughs)  But when it comes to working with people, I can’t do that and I don’t want to do that because I want to be a nice person! Maybe I’ll never discover what it means to be nice, maybe the key to success is to be very blunt and straightforward, but something in my soul tells me that that’s not the way I want to go.

Don’t tell Bern this (sorry Shaun! Haha), but my other inspiration is Bern. She’s extremely inspirational to me because she has…so many issues. She has so, so many issues. (laughs) I get damn frustrated talking to her sometimes. But she has the ability to climb Mount Kilimanjaro without actually training for it. That says a lot about the person right? SO not fit but you can still climb it. She’s got tremendous drive to get things done. She’s the kind of person that would never walk during the 2.4 km NAPFA test. Sometimes that’s not entirely good thing – you also need to know that you’re pushing in the right direction and be smart about the way you apply your energy. But the sheer tenacity and the will to take on hits with amazing grit is what she has, more than anyone else I know. I’m such a slacker, and I’m so lazy, so that to me is really inspirational. I hope I didn’t sound too saccharine, I really mean it in an honest kind of way.

Do you have any advice for our readers?

Say “eff you” to the fear of failure. Say “eff you” to the people who say you’re a failure. To me, a failure can be a badge of honour. You are more accurate in figuring out what you did wrong when you fail. And moreover, failing gives you a sense of humility, and it really forces you to grow up. This fear of failure stops a lot of people from going to do the thing they really want to do. Most young people don’t have dreams yet, but there are certain things you connect to. Indulge your curiosity, expect and be ok with failure, expect that people are going to call you out for failure. If you expect the shittiest things to happen to you, you become a bit more impervious to them. (laughs) So go out and explore the world. Go out and see how you can make a difference in the world. It doesn’t matter even if you don’t have a passion yet. If you don’t, go out and explore! Go do.

The next thing is to surround yourself with people whom you want to be like. It’s because you take on aspects of who those people are. Surround yourself with these people – whether it’s through friendships or simply just putting yourself in those situations. Hang out with people who are your kind of people.

A lot of people are also waiting for opportunities to come their way. Sometimes opportunities have to be made. Sometimes you have to create your own serendipity. Make your own luck. Go out actively and seek opportunities, or put yourself in places where you know stuff is going to happen. So make your own luck, make friends.

Many times, failure and changing the world means not fulfilling certain responsibilities, like providing for your family and achieving economic goals. How do you rationalize this as part of your life journey?

I’ll be honest – I don’t know whether I have a good answer for you. It’s partly because I have a lot of idols within the tech entrepreneurship sphere rather than the social entrepreneurship sphere that really shapes the way I do things and the way I see myself. When you’re young, you will have the greatest freedom to go out and make these mistakes and do these things. Your opportunity cost to take risks with your life is a lot lower right now than later on. When you look at it this way, it makes it a lot easier for you to do all this crazy stuff while you’re young. But obviously you have to balance the crazy stuff, because at the end of the day, one of the most valuable things you can invest in is your education. Or rather, the most valuable thing you can invest in is yourself. Because what education provides in addition to that cert is the way it teaches you to think, and the skills you acquire as a person. You can strip everything else away – money can be earned, but the skills you have and who you are as a person is invaluable and no one can ever take that away from you. As long as you’re doing something that is forcing you to grow and you’re developing skills that you consider to be marketable in the future, it’s fine. And when I say expect failure, I don’t mean just brace to fail. It’s about back-up planning. How you are going to react when things fail, and how you are going to move on to different things. That’s how I balance that pragmatism.

Profiled by Chan Huan Jun

“Only Connect.” - E.M Forster

Alvin Tan 

Founder, Artistic Director at The Necessary Stage.
Age: 49
Websites:  necessary.org, Singaporefringe.com

The Necessary Stage(TNS)  is located in the basement of the Marine Parade Community Centre.  Adjacent to the main building and tucked away in an unassuming little corner, patrons are first greeted with a selection of literary brochures and offerings, painstakingly arranged. It is perhaps a mark of good faith that this material lies unsupervised. As one turns the corner, one is faced with an incongruous white door. The door swings open, and the visitor is transported into another world.

Bicycles, wicker baskets, and newspapers; these are but a few of the random items that adorn the spacious room. Display boards detailing The Necessary Stage’s journey since its inception almost a quarter of a century ago sprout into existence in the centre of the room. The overall effect is at once quaint and overwhelmingly homely.

I am brought through this antechamber by a member of the staff, and led through a darkened corridor where I finally meet Alvin Tan in the flesh.  Every inch the distinguished professor archetype, an air of slight preoccupation clings to him. Salt and pepper hair parted neatly on the side, he considers me for a moment.

“So, what can I do for you?” He breaks into a smile. The professor vanishes, and a grandfatherly figure, bearing the full weight of all its associated adjectives pertaining to warm, affability and patience, stands in his place.

And so we begin.

So, what is the Necessary Stage?

We are a non-profit charity organization that was founded in 1987. It all started in my second year at the National University of Singapore (NUS). I was a second year undergraduate doing sociology at that point in time, and I was doing some theatre on the side. We were, in fact, preparing for the National University of Singapore Student Union (NUSSU) drama competition at that point in time. We staged an adaptation of Woody Allen’s ‘God’, and managed to win the Outstanding Production Award.  After the competition I gathered everyone and I went ‘hey guys, that was pretty good, maybe we should make this a long term thing, yes?’ Reception was generally positive and we first began as a club. Haresh (Sharma) joined me soon after in 1989, and the rest, as they say, is history.

It was just the two of you at the start, then? Sounds difficult.

Actually, no it wasn’t as bad as you might have thought. In fact, I think that right now you’d have more problems doing something like that. You see, back then we did tend to run into a fair number of administrative and logistical problems; the arts scene was in its infancy and there was little hype and bustle. Funding was definitely harder to come by as compared to the present. Despite all of that, it was incredibly exhilarating. Every play we staged, every convention re-imaged, every idea we had; these were all great steps into the unknown. The arts scene was quite literally putty in our hands and we took full advantage of that. It was tremendously exciting to note that every single move we made was completely novel, and the knowledge that we were pushing the borders so rapidly instilled in us a great motivation.

Nowadays, there are so many theatre groups around. It has become difficult to distinguish yourself, and a lot of ground has already been covered. Most ideas have been explored, restaged, rehashed in a multitude of different incarnations; quite frankly, we now have the necessary infrastructure in terms of funding, awareness and support, but it’s become so much harder for a fledgling group to make its mark in an ocean of other similar groups.

You make it sound almost…easy.

Haha, yes on some level, I guess I had an easier time than most. For one, my parents were wonderfully supportive. They backed me up to the hilt. I had a partner with the same passion and drive as I did, and that made things a lot easier. Where challenges were concerned, we used to run into a great lack of space. We would use my house to store the props and university corridors and void decks to rehearse. We funded our performances primarily by taking part in lunchtime performances aimed at office workers that sadly, are a thing of the past. I remember there was one point in time when I had had to skip a term test because it clashed with one of my performances. Thankfully, my professor was very understanding and he allowed me to write an assignment to make up for it.

How do you think the local arts scene has grown since then?

To answer this question, I must take you back to 1992. That was when we first applied to be a company. The National Arts Council had a scheme back then. They would waive theatre rental, on the provision that you did 4 plays a year. Two of these had to be local, and the other two could be foreign, established ones. Initially, there was definitely a certain bias against Singaporean productions. People were of the mindset that foreign plays were of a superior quality. We did some brainstorming and realized a number of important truths.

As a fledgling culture, ours was a story of considerable brevity. Put this in contrast with countries such as the UK. Theirs is a richly woven tapestry. There was no way we could use the strength of our history as a selling point, because we had almost no history to speak of.  Additionally, we were a melting pot of different cultures. Most other directors saw this as a weakness. They thought that this lack of a central identity was a great problem. We thought it could be a strength.

Coincidentally enough, I was doing sociology in my university days, and Haresh (Sharma) was doing sociolinguistics, so we decided to take a look at language. The plays back then could broadly be split into two types: Anglophile-Type plays with your perfect British English, and your typically Singlish plays which abounded with local vernacular.

We decided to play with language and identity and locate a middle ground. This resulted in a conglomeration of different character stereotypes that were both familiar and strange.  It was by all means, a success. The scheme managed to improve the reputation of local productions, and people were going ‘hey, actually these productions are pretty good’. It helped that the audience could also relate to what was happening.  Foreigners were now the ones looking at the footnotes in our work in a bid to get a better grasp of our colloquial and the cultural baggage that each character brought with them!

Did you have to compromise between high art and popular culture?

Well, that isn’t always the case. Oftentimes, theatre becomes a medium for politicizing and propaganda. We’re not like that. We don’t push a hidden agenda. The main purpose of art should be to highlight certain issues and frame it in a perspective that isn’t always so apparent to the general audience at first sight. We don’t moralize; we make people think.

To digress, conflict is necessary in helping people understand each other. When conflict is encountered, it is suggested that one or more of the parties involved disagree on a certain matter. With this conflict, both parties are forced to engage one other and more often than not, gain a better understanding of each other.

I feel that art can aid in this process. We can highlight conflicts prevalent between, for example, different races, social groups or religions and bring it into sharper relief.

So to answer your question, Yes, and No.

We bring these relevant issues to the purview of the audience, which is fine, because that is the way we want to use our art, and through this, we help them to explore different ideas. It may not necessarily be the case that theatre has to be dichotomized into high art and popular culture.

It does appear that TNS then becomes a platform upon which ideas are investigated. With that being said, do you feel that an artist should take a stand upon certain issues? And should this stand be apparent in his/her work?

There’s no hard and fast rule to this one. The artist may take a stand, and this perspective may be evinced through one of his characters in any play; not necessarily the main character, but one character may serve as his mouthpiece. With that being said, it’s perfectly fine for the artist to not take a stand, but this means that he/she must be willing to accept any interpretations that are forced upon him/her. You can’t have your cake and eat it.

I understand, and from the internet, no less, that you used to be a teacher at Raffles Institution. Why the eventual switch in career?

Oh yes, this is interesting. As a student in the National University of Singapore (NUS) I was offered the opportunity to sign up with the Ministry of Education(MOE) as a teacher. However, one of the terms of the contract was that I specialize in a teaching subject such as History, Geography, or English in NUS.  Unfortunately, I had had begun my love affair with sociology and was forced to push this opportunity away. After I graduated, I did a brief stint as a relief teacher in Raffles Institution, and I taught English and Literature to the Gifted Education Program (GEP) students. Ironically, what I had learnt in sociology came in very handy.

By this time, I was already pretty sure of what I wanted to do in life, and it was a toss-up between teaching and theatre. At this point in time, teaching had had already started to become a little more privatized, and I didn’t really like it, because I didn’t think that teaching was about treating your students’ parents as clients and being excessively profit-driven. This was perhaps one of the more conclusive factors that resulted in my eventual choice to do theatre.

I’m not sure if you can call it a switch because I was always directing or doing theatre in my spare time, but eventually I decided to devote all my energy to The Necessary Stage, and here I am today.

Do you have any advice for our readers out there?

Don’t be afraid to experiment in your youth. I was very fickle as a child. I had a large number of CCAs and always took a long time to come to a decision. I flitted from interest group to interest group and I remember my mother used to be very concerned with my vacillations! Today, as I look back upon my past I realize that all this indecision helped shape who I am today. My variety of experiences actually assisted me in eliminating the things that I didn’t want to do for the rest of my life.

Interestingly enough, I had initially intended to stop studying after my Junior College days. When I shared this sentiment with my mother she merely looked at me and nodded her approval. Alarm bells immediately began going off in my head. For what it was worth, I was a teenager back then and she had conveniently removed any rebellious tendencies I had harbored with that simple nod of her head.

Quite plainly, I now had nothing to rebel against. This was rather confusing, all things considered. I eventually decided to continue with my bachelor’s degree.

In summary, take your time, figure out what you want in life, and then make your way towards it.

Profiled by Natalee Ho, special thanks to Chan Chi Ling

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs, Think Different

Bernise Ang

Social Entrepreneur, Founder of Syinc
Age: 31
Website: http://www.syinc.org/
Email: bernise@syinc.org

I first meet Bernise in a little café on Telok Ayer Street. As she sidles into the seat opposite mine, she exchanges a friendly greeting with the staff manning the counter, and flashes me a megawatt smile. Making friends comes easily to Bernise; after all, part of her job involves the creation of solid networks between people. We corresponded via email prior to our meeting, and from the get-go it is clear that Bernise belongs to the rare breed who speak the way they type – her sentences punctuated with smiles and enthusiastic inflections where the exclamation marks would have been. I am charmed by this quirky girl with the toothy grin, and more so by the evident dedication to her work, to Syinc.

Started in 2008 by Bernise, Syinc is a non-profit that seeks to empower our youth by developing their capacity to become effective agents of social change. By enabling young founders and community kickstarters to tackle social and human problems from different angles to create new solutions that shift the status quo, Syinc aims to help build a generation of youth with the both the vision and capability to create the change they would like to see in society. Over the few short years, the organization has continued to grow in scale, and is steadily expanding its operations.

As I speak further with Bernise about her work with Syinc, it is obvious that her heart, as well as the heart of the organization, is very much in the right place. Syinc is, above all else, about the people. The organization understands that social change is at its root driven by all these different individuals – the progenitors of ideas, creative solutions and game-changing momentum.  Ironically, we often forget about the very human side of the social change equation; in the sense that social change is more than just a series of static, perceived solutions to a problem, but also about the connections we form with the people we work with. Syinc works with the intangible, but like all intangible things, these may be the things that end up mattering the most.

What is Syinc about, and how did it begin?

It all happened in university, when I got involved with student activism in Sydney. The whole process of getting involved in a student movement and, with other students, working for a common goal to advance the welfare of fellow international students….something about it opened my eyes to what really making a change was about. Growing up in Singapore, all I was exposed to was CIP, which was a little bit contrived. Going out onto the streets asking for coin donations, going to old folks’ homes, even beach clean-ups – I didn’t really see how doing those things would change anything. Of course, at the time I wasn’t thinking on such a big level, I was like “Sian. Just do this to get my points and be done with it”. (laughs)

It was only through this involvement that I saw that it was not only just about the one off, itty bitty community service hours and points. There was something deeper – social justice. The idea of justice was completely foreign to me before this experience. I mean, we always learn about being nice, doing things out of the kindness of our hearts, which is true – we should always be compassionate. But it’s only when we combine it with the justice angle that it becomes really powerful. When we combine it with a moral calling to make things right in the world. So that really opened up my worldview. I felt that we should do something in Singapore to engage young people, and get them to realise the big potential they have and probably have no idea about. So that was kind of what seeded the idea to do something related to the youth in Singapore and something along the lines of social change. But I didn’t know what.

When I came back to Singapore, I started having a lot of coffee chats with various players in the social sector, and with other young people from different social circles. Through these numerous conversations, I realised 2 things. One is that young people often lack the skills and experience to get something done. This is for the kind of people that have “itchy bottoms” and want to make something happen. The second obstacle is the lack of connections and networks. So for this kind of young people, they already have the passion, they just need the contacts and relationships to get access to institutions and get things off the ground. Why not accelerate the process by giving them things that can eliminate those barriers? This is why Syinc focuses on two areas: building their skills and growing their networks. For skills, we particularly focus on innovation (even though I hate how it’s such a buzzword).

A lot of youth programmes that do skills development focus on technical skills – project planning, doing your budget, creating timelines, etc. And that’s really good. But what we lack is creativity in this area. How do you find new ways to solve old problems? We need to have a certain programme that can widen the worldview of the youth and allow them to see things from a different angle, so that they can tackle a problem with fresh eyes and truly add new value. And that’s the whole point, right? The status quo is the status quo for a reason. If you want to change it, you need to shift something in society, be it social, economic, political, or whatever. Our programmes now are actually based on principles from the design and creative industries, which I think is really unexpected and cool. But it’s taken some time for us to get to where we are as well. A lot of times, people who are not into creative work think that creativity is just about someone having a brain fart and whoo! Out pops an idea. (laughs) But we can’t expect people to just sit there and let something suddenly hit them. The Industrial and product design industries have managed to extract a method from the madness – which we thought was really useful. Could we take that, morph it somehow, and use it to generate something for social impact? So we try to show people what that method looks like. Industrial design is a discipline that produces great products, physical stuff. We saw underlying threads, so we ignored the examples, took the principles and translated it for the Singapore context, and toward social and human outcomes. From there, we slowly put together this programme based on design thinking, that we now use to train young people who want to be change agents – or as we sometimes call them – superheroes! (laughs)

So that’s the training portion, which is about 60% of what we do. And then 30% is…we call them “percolation events”, because we don’t really like the word “networking”. (laughs) I mean, yes, we know that building networks is very important, but we think that culture and the way you do it is also really important. For us, rather than using an innovation hammer to hit through many creativity nails, we believe in creating a great environment for that kind of experience where people can connect and ideas can bounce off each other. You develop a community of change makers, people you can share your difficulties with. I have found that to be really important. The amount of inspiration, energy and friendship that I found from this sense of community really kept me going when I felt that I was going nowhere. It’s a kind of intangible value that you can’t quantify.

So those are the two main things that Syinc does. Then there’s this last little bit, which is consulting. This came about fairly recently, because we wanted to practice what we preach. We didn’t want to become the kind of trainers that only train and are so disconnected from what really happens on the ground. So we started to take on a few consulting projects, where we used the same design thinking method we teach, as a professional service to social sector clients. This not only inspires us but also the people that we train, because we can really show them how things work. But the very practical value to that is that you can read all you want about innovation methodology and design thinking, but it’s only through practice that you can really see how the different principles play out in action. Which we experienced for ourselves.

What made you come back from Australia?

One big factor was family – I couldn’t say no to mum’s pleas. But another big reason was that I knew I wanted to go into some kind of social work. And if I had stayed in Australia I would have actually done much better for myself in terms of an NGO career, because it’s much more respected and professionalized in Australia than it is in Singapore. But it was painful to realise that the place that needs more change is Singapore, and if I really want to put my… life where my mouth is, then I should come back.

What was one thing about running Syinc that didn’t really go the way you thought it would?

I guess I didn’t realise it would be so all-consuming. I’ve taken deliberate decisions in my day job, like deciding that I wouldn’t be a corporate climber. That meant that I wouldn’t go out and talk to my boss about doing more interesting projects, bigger projects, and take on more responsibility at work…so that I could have some time to build up Syinc. This might be okay for most Singaporeans, but I come from a background where everyone is a super overachiever – my family is like, nuts. (laughs) Between the sword of honour and scholars of all types, doctors, consultants, lawyers, everything…it was quite against the grain. So that was kind of hard. But I figured it was quite a compromise already that I was doing a corporate job. I also came to reconcile with doing the corporate job because it enabled me to understand a lot about how the corporate world works, and how finance works (I was in a private equity firm for almost 4 years). Which, in such a business-dominated society, gives you a lot of leverage in reaching out to people who would otherwise not listen to you. It gave me a language to communicate with the mainstream of Singapore society, which is very economics and finance driven. I found that useful, but I think in terms of utility I’ve gotten the most of it already. I feel that I want to…not be a corporate prostitute forever. (laughs) I’m looking to do more creative – more generative – type of work.

What is one thing you would like to see in Singapore?

An openness to experimentation. An openness to failure, and openness to trying. Letting different people be who they are, celebrating different ways of being. And ultimately broadening our notions of success, which I think are narrower than they should be. 

What do you think is success, then?

I could do a cop-out thing and say it’s about not having a definition of success, yadayada. But truly, I feel that as long as you are the living your life the way you want to, you’re being the best version of yourself that you can be – not compared to anyone, just yourself – and you feel happy and whole, then you’re successful. 

What advice would you give to your younger self?

One is to do your homework. It sounds really boring, but I believe that knowledge is power, and you can only be powerful if you understand the context in which you are operating. Especially if you’re trying to effect change. As they say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, and if you don’t really know what you’re doing, you may end up hurting the people you are trying to help.

Another is to accept that people are imperfect. I’m a little bit obsessive compulsive. (laughs)I want things done quickly, and well and perfect and everything, but over time, this has mellowed somewhat. Now I just try to get the best out of people, and that’s really the value of working with people – seeing them grow over time, and trying to bring different strengths together. Which is really tough, working with people is so much tougher than all the “team work” stuff you hear about in school.

How do you keep from feeling disheartened, then, with all these people who want to take advantage of what you are doing?

One, my team. They’re not only my sanctuary, but they’re also my pillow. (laughs) They’re my safe space. I can just go there and be myself, we share pretty much everything with each other. I think it’s absolutely crucial to have a team that you can fully trust. Because you need it.

Secondly, I’m spiritual. I believe there is a higher force, and a higher order of things. If I accept the assumption (and this is something that I’m still on a learning journey on) that what I’m doing now is what I’m truly being called to do, then…a higher spiritual force will guide me there. Even if it’s a circuitous road.

 Profiled by Natalee Ho, special thanks to Andrea Quek and Ong Huiyao

“Dream on/Dream until your dreams come true” - Aerosmith

Jackson Tan

Artist, Designer, Entrepreneur
Age: 37
Website: http://www.PHUNKstudio.com/
              http://blackdesign.com.sg/

It is easy to be intimidated entering the premises of Black Design studio on Mohammed Sultan Street. Like its namesake, the place is decked out in monochrome, with rows of sullen Mac computers, ebony tables and white scribbles on blackboards. The air-conditioning feels like it’s turned up a little too high, and it is a feeling that persists as Jackson Tan, the director of both PHUNK and Black Design, sweeps into the room. He is tall, lean, and dressed simply in a (what else?) black T-shirt, looking very much at home in his cool, minimalist workspace/studio. As he greets us with a slight smile and a warm handshake, however, all inhibitions are put to rest, and we slouch over our packets of green tea at the table.

PHUNK and legendary Japanese pop-artist, Keiichi Tanaami's collaborative installation artwork, ECCENTRIC CITY: RISE & FALL

A Lasalle graphic design alumnus, Jackson started PHUNK, an art and design collective, with three of his friends: Melvin Chee, Alvin Tan and William Chan. Through the years, the studio, with its unique brand of “controlled chaos” as Jackson so aptly put it, has achieved huge success in the region, collaborating with big-name brands like Nike and Levis. Long time collaborator MTV showcases PHUNK’s work regularly on the channel, with most of the packaging for its award shows and idents designed by the studio. Awarded ‘Designer of the Year’ in 2007 by the President’s Design Award, PHUNK stands as one of the leading design agencies in Singapore and in Asia. But PHUNK is more than just a design studio. Crossing the various realms of art, film, publishing, fashion and design, its work, in the words of its founders, is a mix between creativity and commerce. In recent years, PHUNK has displayed its work in galleries, places like the Singapore Art Museum, and fairs like Art Stage Singapore. The studio has evolved into a purveyor of art, and continues to challenge the boundaries of design and artistic creativity.

PHUNK: Alvin Tan, William Chan, Jackson Tan and Melvin Chee

Black Design is Jackson’s private project, and he arranges to meet us there as PHUNK’s studio-cum-gallery is under renovation. He is charmingly self-deprecating and eloquent; interspersing good-humoured jibes at himself with perceptive sound bites and easy laughter. There is a laidback and down-to-earth quality about Jackson that makes interviewing him feel like a chat between friends, and we almost forget that we are talking to one of the few people who redefined the boundaries of art and graphic design in Singapore. At the end of the interview, he thanks us, grins, and personally shows us to the door. Not one to try to impress, Jackson impresses us anyway, and as we descend the stairs of his studio, my friend turns to me with a smile, and says, “That was pretty awesome.” And awesome he is.

What is PHUNK about, and how has it evolved through the years?

The official definition of PHUNK is an art and design collective. But this definition is constantly changing, because we reinvent ourselves along the way. We started in 1994, and before that we were fellow graphic design students in Lasalle. We went to school – well actually, most of the time we didn’t go to school, we just tuanged school together. (laughs) We hung out in arcades playing pinball machines and billiards, things that teenagers did then. We loved music and comic books, so we went to a lot of record shops and comic book stores; we were geeks, basically. We wanted to start a band – that was the original intention of PHUNK – so we went to the studio to jam, but then we realized that our music…sucked. (laughs) We designed better covers for our albums than the music. So what we did was take that rock and roll ethos and DIY spirit, and transfer it to PHUNK. PHUNK still functions very much like a band. We don’t work like a design studio. The way we work and the way we create is like how members of a band work together.

After we graduated we spent the holidays fiddling with the Mac. At that time the old Mac was just out, so we were doing a lot of experimental graphics with it. There were no commercial reasons to do those things, we just liked to do it, and we did a lot of our own posters, our own stuff. One of the things we thought about doing was coming up with a street wear label, like Stussy or X-Large; and when we were reading this British music magazine called Straight No Chaser, the word “phunk” came up. We thought replacing the ‘f’ with ‘ph’ sounded pretty cool (this was back in the early 90s), so we just took that on as our name. (laughs) We learned how to do silkscreen printing, and started printing T-shirts at my house with our own graphics and the word ‘PHUNK’ on it. We knew nuts about running a business, we just printed some T-shirts to look cool and wear to Zouk. (laughs) People said they looked nice and we felt really happy, but we never sold any shirts. The word ‘PHUNK’ remained, though, and we went on to start a free magazine called Trigger. It was a street mag and it lasted only two issues because we knew nuts about publishing as well. (laughs) We didn’t know how to do ad sales, we just wanted to do a really good magazine that was paid for by advertisers. We printed about 15,000 copies and distributed them to shops around Singapore; and within a few days they were all snapped up because they were visually very nice, and actually after we did that we were spotted by MTV, who wanted us to work with them. So we became a design studio, and we worked with them on packaging MTV, and this has gone on for 10 to 15 years. We then went on to collaborate with a lot of different brands on different products; various design projects across all disciplines.

PHUNK's solo exhbition DAYDREAM NATION, @ Art Stage Singapore

So after doing 10 years of PHUNK, whatever we said we wanted to do at the start, like T-shirts and collaborations with youth brands, we’ve accomplished. And then it was like, “now what”, you know? (laughs) We took some time to think about it, and realized that for the first ten years, we were always influenced by external stimulus, things outside of us. We were influenced by Western music, kungfu movies, anime etc. We did work that was mostly requested and commissioned by other people and organizations. We then decided that for the next 10 years we were going to concentrate on looking inwards, and do more personal artwork. We want to share our visual universe. We actually have an imaginary universe with our own characters and stories that we’ve been constructing for the last 4 to 5 years. We now work more with museums who display our work, and galleries that represent us. That’s the story so far.

From what you’ve told me it seems like you guys have been through quite a lot in terms of business failures, etc. What made you guys stick together, and stick to the vision of design for PHUNK?

What made us stay on with PHUNK was the fact that from the start it was never about success or failure. It was about having fun. From day one we were always having fun. Whether it was in the bedroom doing work on a small desktop or playing pinball machines in an arcade or playing in a band, it was always about having the company of these other three people and doing things together. That’s what it is. Until today we’re still having fun. The only reason why we want to be successful and make money is so that we can continue doing this. So that it can sustain our fun.

How would you say you’ve changed since you started PHUNK?

It’s made me more of a team player. We started from being fellow classmates to business partners, and now I would say we’re more like family.

What were the major challenges you faced?

One of the major challenges was that we were never certain that whatever we did would materialize or be well received. The stuff we did and still do…had never been done before and there was no precedent of anybody in the world that had a career like ours. We’ve basically shaped a career and a lifestyle around the way we want it to be. What time we want to wake up to work, how we want to work, who we want to work with…nobody has also really moved from graphic design to art like we have, or at least nobody has done this in Singapore.

What do you mean by working like a band? How has this contributed to how your work turned out?

I guess the way we work with our clients is very different from the usual relationship between a design studio and a client, where the studio works for the client. We work with them. When we work with brands, for examples, it’s always Levis and PHUNK. Most of our clients understand our style and the way we work, and we mostly function like collaborators.

So you’ve managed to keep your artistic integrity.

Actually that’s what they want. We sometimes have really funny situations where clients say a certain piece that we do for them is “not very PHUNK”. (laughs)

When it comes to art, it’s really hard to have the same kind of aesthetic. How’s it like working with 3 other designers and how do you work out internal issues?

I think when we first started all four of us had very different styles. Even though we had common interests, we were very much different. But as the years went by, we became more and more in sync, to the point that it’s almost scary. I think the 3 other guys know me better than myself and vice versa. We can finish each other’s sentences. When I think of a visual idea, their visual image of it is very close to mine.

Singapore is obviously a very small country with a small arts scene. Do you feel you have been limited by your surroundings?

Obviously, when we first began there was nothing. But we found that interesting, because when there’s nothing you set the precedence. When there are other things that have came before then there’s a cultural baggage. So we’ve never thought of it as a negative, we’ve always thought of it as a positive. You become a change maker.

How do you feel about the Singaporean art scene?

Emerging, it’s an exciting time to be working in Singapore as a creator.

What is the difference between the reception of your art in Singapore as compared to overseas?

We do receive more support overseas. In Singapore there isn’t a culture for owning art; when we buy houses, buying art is usually the last thing on our minds. In places like New York, when you’ve got a small house you buy a small piece of art, and when you’ve got a big house you buy a big piece of art. There is definitely a bigger market there for our work.

When you began, how did you straddle having fun and responsibilities like paying the bills and monetary ambition?

Be idealistic in your dreams but realistic in your plans to achieve them. Dream big and take small steps towards it. Never compromise your ideals for money. If you do what you love, you will have the most fun you can imagine and the money will also roll in naturally.

What advice do you for future designers and artists?

(laughs) One advice I would give is to never take advice from older designers. But I think what’s important is to just follow your heart and be true to yourself.

MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia 2010, designed by PHUNK

Profiled by Khairul Rusydi 

“It comes down to a simple choice, get busy living or get busy dying.” – Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption

Ivan Chang

Head of Technology for Start Now
Age: 23
Email: ivan@startnow.sg

Keith Tan

Head of Strategy for Start Now
Age: 22
Email: keith@startnow.sg

Cheng Xinyi

Head of Communications for Start Now
Age: 22
Email: xinyi@startnow.sg

Website: www.startnow.sg
              http://www.facebook.com/startnowsg

Start Now is a volunteer community platform that connects volunteers with volunteering opportunities from nonprofit organizations. It allows volunteers from schools, corporate organizations and the public to create their own profile through which they can coordinate, track and schedule volunteering commitments across different organizations. Non-profits can also utilize the platform as a volunteer management tool, interacting with their volunteers on a much more personal basis.

Ivan and Keith

Started by two long-time friends Ivan and Keith in 2011, Start Now has since burgeoned into a 6-man team consisting of Xinyi, Huey, Kar Yong, Clarence, Keith and Ivan. The organization has continued to grow in terms of reach too – despite just 4 months of operation, Start Now is now a partner with 55 non-profit organizations, and its volunteer base is an 18,000 member strong army. Start Now is currently in talks with various secondary schools and tertiary institutions to test their system, and is collaborating with the National Youth Council for the Community Service Marathon and the Shine Youth Festival. These are exciting times for the organization, and here we meet with the young minds behind the enterprise: Keith, Ivan and Xinyi.

How did Start Now come about?

IVAN: The project was built on past experiences in various segments of our lives. There were two main experiences that were really memorable. One was during our Community Involvement Programme (CIP) trip to an old folks home in secondary school. The experience was not very pleasant because we hardly got to understand the organization, and did not have the opportunity to help as much – there were 40 students cleaning a small room.

The second experience I remember vividly was when I was in Temasek Junior College. I wanted to do more volunteering hours but there was a lot of paperwork involved with the school, and there were problems tracking the activities that we did. If I wanted to volunteer as a student, I had to go through a lot of administrative work between the non-profit organization and the school, and hence there was a huge wastage of time on both sides of the equation! Even an ad hoc event like Flag Day required so much paperwork to be done. I thought to myself, there must be some way for everything to be automated.

So now with the opportunity and internship experience I had with a non-profit organization, Keith and I thought that we could try to solve this problem. By automating and computerising certain processes on a ‘cloud’, we hope to make it as simple as possible for everyone, and to lessen the burden for the student, teacher and non-profit organization. That is the genesis of Start Now and the core foundation for us. We aim to find opportunities for volunteers to volunteer with non-profit organizations.

If we could put Start Now in a tweet, Start Now …

KEITH: connects volunteers with volunteering opportunities.

What has been the most challenging part about running Start Now?

IVAN: Because each of us function in different roles, we all face different challenges. For the non-profits side, the main challenge is not the free adoption system, but the many complex features and requests that they want. If there is a wish list, it can go on and on, but there is a need for us to moderate, as we need to make it as simple as possible for the volunteers as well.

KEITH: We have to find this middle ground, and knowing our strengths and weaknesses allows us to pivot and market the system to the right target audience.

How have your parents reacted to you guys choosing such a different career route?

KEITH & IVAN: They’ve gotten used to us already, and are quite immune to it. (laughs)

XINYI: Based on the stories that they’ve told me about their past, their parents have not only tahan-ed them, but they have also been very supportive and even partake in their entrepreneurial activities. Keith was just telling me yesterday about how when they were in secondary school, the only thing they did every night was to print t-shirts and their parents will help to iron the t-shirts. Remember the flower exchange between schools on Valentine’s Day? They were actually the ones behind the idea.

IVAN: Our headquarters were at my aunt’s place and it was a logistical nightmare. Basically, our family members are quite ‘desensitized’ to us. (laughs) 

What surprised you the most about starting this social entreprise?

XINYI: The most surprising thing for me is the amount of people who want to help. It’s quite surprising to see how many people are in this sector, who want to make a change and have a voice in this society.

There’s a rise in the number of people who want to do social work overseas. While overseas CIP is great, do you think we’ve been forgetting our local Singaporean community?

KEITH: As someone who has taken part in a project overseas, I believe there is a lot of work to be done there and it is great that there has been an increased interest in doing overseas CIP. But what Start Now is focusing on at this point of time is to foster a volunteering spirit in our local community, and get people to recognize the issues that are already present in Singapore. As you start to volunteer with welfare organizations or non-profits in Singapore, you realize that there are issues in Singapore that could use the social innovation that a lot of youths are doing in developing countries. So why not start here first?

That being said, there is a large quantum of change in terms of the impact of a project overseas rather than locally. You could increase the daily income of the poor in a developing country by 4 to 5 times through a project, whereas in Singapore, it might just increase by 10%. However, the 10% here is just as important as the 4 to 5 times overseas.

It is a difficult conundrum but what we are trying to encourage in our community is the idea that if you’ve got a free weekend every week, get involved in our society. Our system will prompt you with activities that might be available according to the time, location and preference.

IVAN: It’s not just about the money and results. The impact one creates as a volunteer will help to build stronger bonds within our community. As minister Heng Swee Keat pointed out, community service in Singapore is the key to creating an inclusive society and getting people to understand that we are Singaporeans. This is the focus of the new ‘Values in Action’ scheme. We want people to take ownership of issues in the Singaporean community, and we hope Start Now plays a contributing factor to ensuring that.

Volunteers are a powerful resource; they give so much and so freely without expecting anything in return. How do you guys keep the magic going for them?

IVAN: A platform for IT is only merely a toolset and it cannot solve human issues. Our toolset can reduce the barrier and burden by pulling people together, but it has to be a collective effort to build that relationship and keep that magic going.

If you take a look at our platform, volunteers are affiliated to the non profit organization so that they feel a certain sense of belonging. Messaging, email, social media functions are integrated to help non-profit organizations create an engaging relationship with their volunteers.

Start Now’s mission is to make it as easy as possible for everyone to volunteer, but the greater accomplishment is when everyone, be it the volunteers or the non-profit organizations, play a role and takes the initiative and effort to cultivate a positive relationship with each other.

KEITH: There are many things that we can input into the system to keep the magic going but at the end of the day, as much as we want to connect volunteers, the magic can only be sustained if the toolsets are being well utilized. A non-profit organization needs to create a certain understanding with the volunteers on why they are volunteering as well. Even a thank you note to recognize their efforts really means a lot to a volunteer.

Do you foresee an ending point for Start Now?

IVAN: There is no ending point. Even if we accomplish something, it is merely the end of the first chapter. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, ‘‘It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’

KEITH: Our vision is to be the leading volunteer community platform in Asia. There are 229 million volunteers in Asia (not including India) who volunteered in February alone. So our goal is to reach out to people who have not volunteered before, people who are volunteering but can volunteer more through convenient opportunities, and people who are advocates for the volunteering movement. We also want to make volunteering good for schools and companies as well. In Singapore alone, there are many organizations out there and we want to help to raise the volunteering rates in Singapore.

What is one thing that youth in Singapore should do and one thing that they shouldn’t?

IVAN: I am not against planning, but really, just do it and start now.

KEITH: Don’t hesitate and stop finding excuses. There is a huge time frame since we are young and the opportunity cost is lower, so we should go out and get that experience.

____________________________________________________________________________

In the spirit of  “Stop ____, Start Now”, Join Start Now in their first changemaker ‘Starters’ event this Wednesday, 28 March, 7pm at SMU Ice Cold Beer. For more info, http://www.facebook.com/events/268888846519938/

“The world is in such a mess because of the evil men and stupid women running it – when we have a better balance of good men and intelligent women in the equation, paradise will return as the Creator intended it to be.”

- Ivy Singh-Lim, The Gentle Warrior

 

Ivy Singh-Lim

Farmpreneur, Owner of Bollywood Veggies
Age: 63
Website: http://www.bollywoodveggies.com/

Right outside the Bollywood Veggies farm stands a sign made of corrugated metal, with its words boldly capitalised and hand-painted in yellow: HOME OF THE GENTLE WARRIOR. It is the first thing that greets visitors to the farm, and the first indication of the bold character that runs it.

It is easy to see why Ivy would call herself a warrior – for one, she definitely looks the part. With her cowboy hat, cargo shorts, and even a knife hooked to her belt, she looks every bit the tough new age warrior at age 63. She acts the part too. Never one to shy away from the spotlight, candour and feistiness have become words synonymous with Ivy Singh-Lim over the years, and in person, that image definitely holds up. As I inform her that everything I write will be sent to her to be checked before publication, she waves it off, saying, “You don’t have to do that. I stand by everything I say.” It is with this same conviction that Ivy has faced most of the hurdles in her life, whether lawsuits or the challenges of setting up a farm in agriculturally underdeveloped Singapore.

Bollywood Veggies is Ivy’s labour of love, which she set up after her retirement. Nestled in the Kranji countryside and boasting a ten acre farm, a bistro, a Food Museum and a fully equipped kitchen for cooking lessons, it is not just a place for nature lovers, but also the average person looking to relax and unwind. Everything about the place is lovingly rustic, from the sunny yellow walls of the bistro to the multiple loaves of banana bread on the counter, from the hat-toting stuffed scarecrows to the untidy rows of fruit trees with their names painstakingly written on little markers stuck into the earth. There is a distinctive handmade quality about everything on the farm; a charming warmth and humanity that is reflective of Ivy herself. She is hands-on about everything – as she shows me about the farm she is also pulling weeds out of flowerbeds, and cutting dried leaves from plants. Watching Ivy interact with her farm and the people who help to run it, it is clear that the farm is not an enterprise for her but a product of her love for the land, and a great source of pride. And despite the aggressive, almost combative demeanour that so personifies Ivy, Bollywood Veggies is also borne out of her love for the people, with Ivy employing adults who are older and disabled. In her own words, “Anything that walks past my doorway, and has life in it and a heartbeat, I try to do something about it.”

Make no mistake; Ivy is one iron lady. But she is more than just uncompromising strength. She is, more than anything, a person of great love and extraordinary fearlessness. Whether you agree with her views or not, you cannot help but admire her remarkable passion for life.

What is Bollywood Veggies about, and why agriculture of all things?

Basically, I’m a fortunate Singaporean. It all starts from that fact. I’m a fortunate Singaporean, I’m very wealthy, and I was brought up to love life, to do something useful. I didn’t have to study hard because I’m a genius. (laughs) I didn’t have to work hard because I had plenty of money anyway. So when my husband and I retired, we looked to what we were going to do for the rest of our life.  We wanted to retire on a big piece of land, and do what we love to do. And what we love to do is planting, fishing, raising animals, that kind of carefree life. At first we were all going to go Perth, but then my friend Michael had a heart attack and passed away, and on the plane back my husband and I read about this other farmer down the road and the land that was available – it was as if the universe intervened. So Bollywood Veggies is really about the universe intervening, and instead of retiring in Perth, I stayed in Singapore. Our plans changed from starting a farm in Perth and retiring there to finding land here and retiring here. That’s all. Bollywood Veggies is about a fortunate Singaporean who was born in this country and wants to die in this country. Because I’m not Indian and I’m not Chinese. I am Singaporean.

What do you love about Singapore?

The greatest thing I love about Singapore is the fact that it’s the country I was born in. A lot of people don’t understand that, they don’t have this bond with their country. But for me, I have a very strong bond to my country, to the land. My father was a landowner when I was born and we owned big tracts of land; as a child I used to run around my father’s land, building huts, hunting, camping. When you’re brought up on the land, you form this attachment to the land. And I will never live in any other country, because I don’t have an attachment to that country. An attachment to your country means you feel you can do more for your country, be it the people or the land. You want to beautify the place, make it into paradise.

Do you think you’re successful, and how would you define success?

I actually wrote an article about this. People always think that money means success. To me, success is being able to be true to yourself. It really doesn’t matter what others say – be they your relatives and friends, your business associates and your political leaders, other Singaporeans and the international community. At the end of the day, you ought to live your life the way you want to.

What advice do you have for the young people of Singapore?

You know I hate this phrase “active aging”. It’s so irritating. If we had another campaign we should call it “active living”, because we should encourage children to appreciate life when they’re born. To look at what they have and what more they can do to make it worthwhile, instead of telling them to work hard, study hard and make plenty of money. My father always told us that we were special, and that we should think why we were created special. So every morning I look at the sun and tell myself, I’m special. And then I go to the bathroom and take all my clothes off, and then I say, I’m special. Of course now I’m not so special, my tits are hanging down here and my stomach is a bit big (laughs), but when I was your age I was superlatively, fabulously, beautiful, you know?

Ivy's employee Oh Siew May and the book she wrote about her struggle with cerebral palsy – Scaling Walls

So basically, I think we should promote this thing about active living to kids. I have a staff member working here, May, who has cerebral palsy. They did a television programme on her for Tuesday’s report. Now in that report she said that when she went to school, they all called her an alien. Imagine growing up like that – what would motivate you to go to work everyday, to go to school everyday? I also have a three-quarter blind boy working for me. What motivates him to take a train and then a bus all the way from Toa Payoh in order to work here? I think telling your children that they are special and that they should appreciate life, no matter what, whether they’re blind or disabled, is very important. We should not bring young people up in a culture of fear, but in a culture of active living. We should show them that there’s so much we can do. The culture of fear is the worst thing that you can do to children. Remove the culture of fear from young people. Tell them life is beautiful. Don’t tell them life is hard, and it’s really all about hard work. That’s bullshit, you can go swimming everyday if you want to. Just eat a piece of bread and a piece of chicken and you can still be alive. Of course, it depends on what you want – I mean if you want air-conditioning, you want to drive a car, then that’s a different story. But you could buy a bicycle too if that’s all you need.

For women, especially, they grow up fearful. But I was brought up to be a warrior. I’m not frightened of anybody or anything. If God is very merciful and kind, why should I be frightened of God? And I’m not frightened of the devil. The only devil you should be afraid of is the one looking at you in the mirror. (laughs) 

Do you ever feel tired from having to fight so hard for all these things you believe in, even after retirement?

I’m a warrior, darling. I don’t get tired, I just get even. Whenever I speak  to someone stupid, I tell myself, “forgive him, he’s a halfwit”. You just have to take a little bit more time to explain to the halfwit what you’re trying to do. And if that halfwit still doesn’t understand, I know I don’t have to deal with him, I can go to his boss. So because I’m not fearful, I’ll just phone the minister and tell him he’s got a halfwit working for him. I’m never tired, I’m never afraid. If I don’t intentionally do something to harm somebody, if I’m honest and genuine, why should I be afraid?

Who or what inspires you?

I don’t need inspiration. My fortunate life inspires me. As I said, I was brought up as a young, beautiful child, and everybody loved me. If you’re brought up as a secure child without the element of fear, then you do not have to look to somebody in order to be motivated.

I’m a highly self-motivating person. I used to walk along Raffles Place in front of all the mirrors and I’d be like, “Who’s that beautiful woman?” And then I would realise, oh, it’s me! (laughs) What more do I need to motivate myself?

Wealth is often said to make people complacent about what they have, and comfortable with the status quo because it has served them well. How have you avoided that complacency in your life?

 Money is only paper.  I was not brought up to understand money, I was brought up to understand life. So when I look at land, I see life. I don’t see money. When you see life, you try to make something out of it. Someone once asked me how I practiced diversity in my company. How I do it is that anything that walks past my doorway, and has life in it and a heartbeat, I try to do something about it. People have not been taught about life. I think critical to producing people who can make a difference is to tell them that life is beautiful, and to do something that makes it better.

Profiled by Natalee Ho

“Go out and climb your mountains,/Or else build them here./We cannot

stop you./We could never have stopped you./O my four million

strong,/You are beautiful, you are endless.”

- Ng Yi-Sheng, Official Letter

Ng Yi-Sheng

Writer, poet, playwright, freelance reporter and educator
Age: 31
Website: http://lastboy.blogspot.com/
             http://sporeartsalon.blogspot.com/

Ng Yi-Sheng first rose to prominence in 2006 with the publication of his non-fiction book, SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21^st Century, a collection of the coming-out stories of Singaporean queers. This was soon followed by his debut poetry collection Last Boy, which bagged him the Singapore Literature Prize in 2008, making him the youngest recipient of the prize to date. He is also an accomplished playwright. As a teenager, Yi-Sheng won the SPH-Theatreworks 24hour Playwriting Competition two years in a row, and has since remained actively involved in theatre – both as a playwright and a performer. Aside from writing and performing, he is also the co-organiser of the monthly interdisciplinary art event, SPORE Art Salon.

For a man known for his passionate, almost flamboyant theatre and poetry performances, Yi-Sheng is surprisingly subdued at first meeting. Even the pink of his shirt is a pale, muted shade, unassuming and unpretentious. As the interview begins there is a certain self-conscious and slightly embarrassed quality to his voice, but he is nonetheless frank, speaking matter-of-factly about Singapore, his work, and his journey as a Singaporean creative.

So…why did you choose writing as a career?

One of my friends recently said this about himself and I think it’s true about me as well. It’s not that I love writing; I love having written. Writing is one of the few things that people always told me I was good at. I think that we do still need writers… I don’t know if we need poets so much, but I think that unfortunately that’s the truth.

The reason why I ended up being a writer as a career… it’s a little odd. People would ask me if I wanted to be a full time writer when I was younger, because I won a few competitions when I was a teenager, and I said no. I need to pay the bills. But my parents were quite supportive; my first job out of university was working in the National Arts Council, in the Visual Arts department. It was a temp job, but I saw how many full time visual artists there were. I also met some people who do full time copywriting, and I realized that if these artists and copywriters can do it, why can’t I?

I understand you attended Columbia University in New York. Why did you choose to come back, especially from a place like New York, where the literary scene is so developed?

Three reasons, really. First, I was involved in the theatre-writing scene in Singapore before I left, and people were telling me that I had to come back and write. I felt like I already had an investment here. When I went to New York, I found that I didn’t have that same sort of connection with any specific company or place, partly because I think I was doing too many things in university. I should’ve spent less time studying and more time just doing. But in general I think it was harder for me to find a niche and get a sense of the fact that if I stayed I would matter.

But I think the more important reason is that in New York I was depressed a lot of the time. I was very surprised when I came back to Singapore, it stopped. Maybe it was more to do with the fact that I was finally finishing my studies, but… it’s not that I did badly in my studies, actually it was the contrary. There was just a lot of pressure to do well whereas my personal life was really… I was trying to date and it was going really badly. In Singapore, when you’re of the majority race, it’s a lot easier. For a gay man, anyway.

That’s actually really surprising.

I know Singaporeans who have made it in New York, like the directors Wang Meiyin and Alec Tok. I think I’m very tied to the sense of… you can call it family, but it’s not just about immediate family members. It’s about there being a whole community of people you know that you feel part of.

People have made the comment that Singapore is a structured and rigid society, and this has compromised on the creativity of Singaporeans. As a creative in Singapore, have you felt limited by your environment in any way?

I think for writers, the big problem isn’t one of rigidity. In Soviet times, in Eastern Europe, you had writers who were under much more pressure to conform. But that pressure actually fed into their creativity. It gave them more to write about. The problem for writers in Singapore is that there is not a very developed sense of readership, not a huge audience for Singapore writing. A lot of bookstores are also not as supportive as they could have been. That being said, a number of small bookstores like BooksActually and small publishers like Firstfruits have been very supportive, and over time a community of people interested in Singapore writing has developed. Not just in Singapore – in Filipino universities they study our books as examples of Southeast Asian writing in English.

But in terms of rigidity, I think perhaps what was more of a problem in the past was the social view that being an artist was not socially worthwhile. And you’ve still got some of that around, but the government has actually been surprisingly progressive when it comes to things like funding. Especially when talking to people from other parts of Southeast Asia… we are getting a lot more arts funding than they expect.

So we’re on our way?

Hopefully. In many ways this is a top-down approach, and yet you’re not sure if it will lead us to a brighter future in the longer term. What we do know is that in terms of other art forms, it has had some success stories. The audience for visual arts has grown with the museums being improved. One easy example is when the Esplanade started the da:ns festival, including contemporary dance, they really didn’t know they’d be able to get audience members, but now things sell out – you put the food out, and people come.

That’s great. Going back to the previous thing about readership… why do you think there is always such a negative connotation when people use the word “local”? Why do Singaporeans feel so bad about our own writing when we’re actually quite good?

Partly it’s because there is so much good stuff coming out from the rest of the world. But the other reason is that we have never been confident of our own culture because our culture has been hard to define. You want to talk about cultural roots, you’ll have to end up talking about our cultural ancestors in Indonesia, China and India. So these are more Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian rather than Singaporean. Our culture, the Singapore we live in now, has undergone a rupture since then. We’re an English-speaking shopping mall culture. And that’s okay! This is who we are. We don’t have to beat ourselves up about it. But because it ends up being our real culture in many ways it feels very generic and very bland. It is harder to be proud of it. We end up being proud of imperfections like Singlish.

It’s hard to figure out how to represent Singapore without self-exoticizing, and I feel like the theatre world actually does it pretty well. Look at Haresh Sharma’s plays, produced by The Necessary Stage. They focus on the conflicts that appear when people from different cultures encounter each other, which is what does happen in Singapore. That’s a really interesting thing to explore.

We don’t have the sort of culture that binds us maybe?

You can blame the PAP aplenty, but it’s partly because of the shortness of our history, the small space… Even Chinese Malaysians feel much more bound to their countries than us. A lot of it has got to do with the sense that our culture got disrupted.

I think the turning point was the 70s. In the 60s and early 70s there was this idea of a happening, slightly lawless Singapore…but in the late 70s we had the Speak Mandarin campaign, which made it impossible for our generation to communicate with our grandparents, who spoke mostly dialect. We underwent a lot of changes, we became different people. By the 80s, Singapore was developed and we were proud of being developed. There was not much nostalgia in the 80s.

The contemporary artists who came up before and in the 80s are still seen as the leaders in contemporary Singapore art but they are of a very different flavour from our generation of artists. A lot of them are very concerned with this idea of missing Singapore’s history, protesting the change that has come upon us. Whereas our generation, we are products of this change. We are also interested in Singapore’s past, but when you see representations of our past, it’s an imaginary place. We’ve never experienced it. The only way we can talk about it is ironically.

We still don’t really know who we are as a culture because even in National Day in the second decade of the 21^st century, the Singapore government shows people growing up in kampongs. That’s really becoming less realistic now. A lot of Singapore wants to hold on to that identity of coming from Third World to First World, but our culture now is First World culture and we don’t know how to talk about that.

You’ve often been described as a queer writer, and one of your first works, SQ21, was a compilation of the coming-out stories of Singaporean gays and bisexuals. Are you afraid of being pigeonholed?

No. They talk about brand identity sometimes, and it helped. I have very rarely had to suffer in the arts because of my queer identity. What’s really strange is that I write for a children’s newspaper called What’s Up, and I’ve asked my editor whether at some point I will have to use a pseudonym because I’m so associated with the gay and activist world. He said well, no actually, whenever the teachers have mentioned my name it’s because they like my articles. Eventually someone might write a letter of complaint but so far I’ve been really lucky. If anything it drew more people to my work, partly because of the decade that I started publishing in.

I think being gay helped me have a certain kind of community. Not all writers want community, but I’m the sort who does enjoy community. I curate this event called ContraDiction every year, and it’s an evening of queer writers, and you get lots of weird interesting stuff, because just because you’re queer doesn’t mean you write the same. We’ve also had heterosexual guest stars, and it’s not just poetry – we’ve had songwriters, bloggers, play excerpts. It’s a mishmash of things. It’s seen as a gathering time for queer people. Once I decided to invite the Director of the National Arts Council Literary Department, and he came, and he was quite impressed, actually, because there were so many people. It’s actually a little silly how much we ourselves and outsiders portray us as a homophobic community because well, we are, but almost every society is. And the law makes us look a lot more homophobic than we actually are.

Do you think you’re successful and how would you define success?

I used to suffer from clinical depression in America, so a lot of my success now involves not wanting to die all the time. I mean if I think about how my life has improved so far, yeaaaah that’s a pretty big improvement. (laughs) People sometimes tell me that I haven’t been publishing recently, and looking at my CV, I won the Singapore Lit Prize in 2008, and I haven’t won a lot of prizes since then. But I’m still doing stuff, and I’m still involved in a number of things in the arts community. I’m exploring certain avenues of writing, I’m not –

Stagnating?

Well some people may say I’m stagnating, and sometimes I do worry that I’m stagnating. It’s dangerous to think that success is as long as you’re happy but it’s also dangerous to think that your self-worth depends on what you can put on a CV. This is the dilemma of the Singaporean artist. You are very Singaporean in that you are pragmatic and you want deliverable results and progress, but as an artist you also want to see things the rest of Singapore doesn’t. So one part of me says I’m not yet successful because I haven’t had an internationally best-selling work, but another part of me says I’m successful because I’m pretty happy. I’m also making enough that even though I stay with my parents I don’t have to ask for pocket money. I can pay for them when we go to watch shows, and I’ve got lots of friends.

I must say, you’re very different from the typical stereotype of the angry Singaporean artist raging against the system.

Sometimes I’m angry, and anger is a very productive emotion. But not all the time, and I do think a broader perspective of Singaporean culture is necessary. We are not going to turn the clock back and become the 60s again. These are interesting times. We are only boring if you don’t look hard enough.

Profiled by Natalee Ho
Special Thanks to Seah Ee Wei

Profiled by Ng Wenyan

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs

Adrianna Tan

Co-founder, Pen to Pixel
Age: 26
Email: skinnylatte@gmail.com
Website: popagandhi.com

Adrianna Tan is a traveler, entrepreneur and geekette of all trades. She used to write and photograph in the Middle East and South Asia, and has travelled to more than 120 cities in 30+ countries over the last 5 years. She now lives between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and is also constantly found in the great metros of the Indian subcontinent. She set up and runs the design agency Pen to Pixel, and is also deeply involved in building communities in Singapore, through tech, events and politics, and also various charitable organizations.

Did you always know that you were going to be a writer?

Actually the first person to figure that out was my father. When I was 6 or 7, he told me, “You’re going to be a writer.” I was like, ”How’d you know?” “Ah, I know it. Here are all these books you should read, on ‘How to become a better writer’.“ I think him seeing it first helped. Writing and books were a big part of my childhood, and I had very few toys and kiddy things. I was just in this world of books. That has always been an important part of my life.

People say you write with maturity beyond your years and a refreshingly unpretentious voice. How did you find that writing voice?

I don’t think I would have a writing voice at all if it wasn’t for a couple of people who have been instrumental in dragging that voice out of me. SCGS really valued literature above anything else, and it was good in the sense that because so much value was placed on it, the teachers actually actively recognized the girls whom they thought had the ability to write further.

My form teacher set up this program with one of the best poets in Singapore, Edwin Thumboo. She identified 5 girls whom she thought could be writers and made us go to him every Monday at NUS. We had to go see him with the poems we’d written. Going to him helped a lot, because although he couldn’t really do much in terms of content, he focused a lot on trying to establish a voice for all of us. Before I started this program, well, I could write. But not in a distinct way. And he just kept making me rewrite things over and over again. And that was a big part of why I write the way I do now. I think it was a slow process. I rebelled a little, because, you know, when you’re 15, you think you know better. He was the one who said, you need to write from your experience, you need to write in a way that’s really true and honest.

It’s always refreshing to be around people who don’t just want to be nice. There are so many people out there who, if you show them any piece of writing from anyone, even if they didn’t like it, they’ll be like, ”Oh, it’s actually quite nice.” So around people who are really honest, it makes you wake up and go, “Okay, I need to be better at lit, better at writing.” My JC lit teacher made me feel that I should never be happy with something mediocre and that I should always expect to be a lot better.

After JC, I think what helped was the traveling. It was one of my biggest teachers and still continues to be. On the road, you learn so much. Travel is pretty much, as someone said to me, you know, “All of life’s experiences, distilled into the week or the month.” If you travel a certain way, it can be like that. Places wise, I go anywhere. The more untouched and the scarier it is, the more I’m drawn to it.

Have you always wanted to travel?

Yeah. Well I mean, it was always something I wanted. But I didn’t know how it was going to be possible. When I was younger, I would read job openings in the Classifieds and go, “I don’t want to be any of these things!” The only thing I could picture was me in a little hut, somewhere in a mountain. It didn’t really make any sense back then, but I’m thinking it does now.

What’s travelwriting to you?

I think it’s like photography in the sense that everyone can do it, but few can do it very well. I don’t want to just hear about which places you went to or which restaurant you ate at, you know, or see endless photos of your meals. That’s not travelwriting. I want to hear a story, you know, whether it comes in the form of a photo essay, or a travel book. I guess the best travel writers have been able to tell great stories about their journeys and about the people they’ve met. Even if some of it might have been embellished, at the end of the day it’s all about the story.

How did Pen to Pixel come about?

Well, writing was fun but I started thinking that I wanted to write about stuff I cared about, rather than writing just for money. So I decided to keep writing as a sort of a hobby and keep working at it on the side, while trying to make money through other means. My other passion has always been tech. Even in university, I was working in the Apple store to fund my travels. And on my travels I would write. Tech is like an extension of my life. From the time I was 12, I was already fiddling a lot with computers. I was just very curious, and would take apart perfectly good computers and try to put them back together again. I would install all kinds of stuff. I’m just so reliant on tech and it has sort of impacted pretty much everything that I do. I knew I was going to be a writer since I was a kid, and the website was where I found my audience. It’s got me to events and conferences; it’s got me a job in Dubai. It’s like my platform I guess. Pen to Pixel came about because I really didn’t know what else to do. It was an obvious alternative to writing, and I just knew that if I had to work in a job where I needed to apply for leave and have only 21 days off every year, I would just die. I cannot do that. I cannot go to the same place repeatedly every single day. I need freedom and I need space to do my own things. Before I realized this thing about myself, when I was still in school, everyone just thought I was being lazy. But now I know that I just learn and do things better amidst organized chaos.

How would you define success in business?

I think, of course, on a monetary level, success is important, especially when there are other people involved. But if you manage to strike the fine balance between making money, solving a few problems that make some lives better, and at the same time, raising the level of a craft you’re passionate about, then that’s great. Hopefully, I’ll be able to build the company to a level where I can give back to the society that’s made me, and also to get to a point where I can hire young Singaporeans and young Indians to work in an interesting company, doing something they can be proud of, and to be able to pay them way above market rate for the talent they have.

Who inspires you?

Steve Jobs was special. I don’t know if we’ll ever have someone like him again. He’s just proven that if you want to be great at something, at your peak you’re untouchable but at your lowest you’re completely fallible. I think, for me, his personal philosophy has been even more attractive than his business, although he’s great at what he does on a business level. You know, from the stuff he says, it shows that he has thought very clearly about a whole set of things that people normally don’t care about. For example, on his deathbed, he refused to wear a certain oxygen mask because he didn’t like the design, and although I don’t think I’ll ever be that extreme, but, you know, that just shows his level of dedication to what he does, you know, of taking complex things and making it simple and beautiful at the same time. And also, I think his speech in Stanford University in 2005 is probably something that every young person should hear.

What do you have to say to young Singaporeans out there?

Although we’re told that Singaporean youths are apathetic, I don’t think we are. I think we have a lot of young, talented people who don’t necessarily know how to take their ideas to the next level. And that’s mostly because, honestly, we have very few role models. But that’s changing. So I think what I can tell them is don’t expect a proper “path”, that’s the first thing they should remember. I mean, it’s good to have something to work towards, but I think for a lot of us in this country, we freak out when we don’t know exactly what the next step is going to be, when there are no model answers, and when there are no hard and fast rules. But if there were, then life would really be quite boring. And, you know, behind every great writer whom we romanticize to be so lucky to just wake up every day and write their book in their pyjamas, lies a lot, a lot of hard work.

Although some people crave normality and stability, I don’t. I just know that it’s not me. I feel like a fraud when I’m normal, like “there’s something very weird about this”. I don’t want to get to a point where I’ve any regrets, so I make sure I do something crazy every year to keep myself grounded. It’s like my therapy from normal life. I guess I’m a bit of a risk taker, and I thrive on it. I’ve always been, sort of, given the liberty to pursue things that made sense to me. Sometimes it made sense to only me. So, in that sense, I don’t have any regrets because I’ve consciously chosen everything I’ve done and the paths I’ve taken. When I started going away, I can’t say I knew exactly what I was doing. I had some vague idea, but I went ahead anyway, and that gave me more clarity. Like, I just knew I had to go to India. I didn’t even know why; hadn’t even been there. Knew I had to go. So I went. And you know, it was only because I went to India that my writing career got started. I randomly met someone over there, who said, “Let’s do a story together.” And it turned out to be the cover story of a magazine. If I had just stayed home, I would never have had this opportunity. So many people tell me, when they find out what I do, “Oh, you’re very brave.” Actually, I don’t feel particularly brave at all. I think it’s important to not force yourself to be someone that other people think you should be, and whatever it is that you want to do, don’t doubt for a minute that you can really make it happen.

And I highly recommend everyone, especially younger people, to travel when they have the chance to, before they settle down into jobs, marriages, kids, and mortgages. To just see the world as much as they can. Because there’s so much they can learn from the process.

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.” – Seneca

 

Profiled by Lilian Huang

“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius

Name: Ho Renyung
Age: 26
Location: Singapore
Title: Co-founder of Kennel.
Email: ren@inthekennel.com
Website: http://inthekennel.com/

Name: Ken Yuktasevi
Age: 31
Location: Singapore
Title: Co-founder of Kennel.; Co-founder of UNION Experience (the design/innovation lab that is Kennel.’s parent company)
Email: ken@inthekennel.com

Name: Mark Wee
Age: 36
Location: Singapore
Title: Co-founder of Kennel.; Co-founder of UNION Experience
Email: mark@inthekennel.com

Ho Renyung, Ken Yuktasevi and Mark Wee are co-founders of Kennel., a collaborative workspace located at Dempsey Hill that provides creative entrepreneurs not just with a conducive physical environment in which to carry out their work, but a community with which to connect, exchange ideas and collaborate. It also hosts educational programming and events such as Kennel Night, where various speakers share their personal experiences relating to particular themes and seek to explore these ideas to the fullest through communal discussion.

How did Kennel get started, and what inspired you to set it up?

RENYUNG: Kennel, like all great things, started quite serendipitously, through a series of different events – there’s a bit too much detail to go into, but it started because of a common vision that was shared by the three of us, and when the opportunity came, the intention had already been ripening for a while. So when all these different factors came together – the space became available, there were people asking for it, we had energy and time to put into it, and we had noticed more and more of these spaces coming up and the desire for it – we were like “okay, let’s do it”. There was no single overwhelming reason; it was just a confluence of different factors. In terms of why we started it, we wanted to have an environment and a platform that enabled people’s dreams to be realised. It sounds quite lofty, but it was really about creating a space where people were comfortable being themselves and could explore different options and varieties of work-life integration to find what they wanted, and could also meet different kinds of people. That’s why it’s called Kennel, because we don’t want that diversity of species to be lost.

MARK: And it’s just a funny word, “kennel” – it’s a whimsical kind of place to house a dog, and the spirit of that word suited the fact that this was a place people would work out of. This space actually used to be our design office, and we ran our design studio out of here for a while. When we moved out, we decided to transform the space into a place where people could work and where they could have a community. So we said, “Okay, why don’t we call this place Kennel?” And I think it fits. More than anything, we’re trying to create a community of people here, where they are able to dream and hopefully make their dreams a reality. That’s what we’re trying to do.

Kennel is a space for collaboration – what experiences have you had that have shown you the value of collaboration?

KEN: I think part of the reason why Mark and I really believe in collaboration – apart from our being closet hippies – is because of the very work that we do. We do something called experience design in our own design studio – I’m actually a filmmaker, and Mark’s an architect – and in the process of experience design, we create solutions and ideas together that we would never have come up with if we just hung out with filmmakers or architects. I think a certain amount of values come attached to a proper collaboration – it’s almost like marriage. You can’t really collaborate without humility, or courage, or curiosity. For us, we realised that all these things just worked well in the work that we did, and we believed that we could bring that to the world.

RENYUNG: A lot of our Kennelists here work with each other on collaborative projects – sometimes it feels almost like a production house. Everyone spends time informally finding out what one another’s skillsets are, and then sees how these match their existing projects. We ourselves spend time finding out what our Kennelists’ passions and areas of expertise are, and we usually develop projects together with them, and facilitate situations that bring them together.

MARK: One important collaborative experience we’ve created is Kennel Night. When we first started a couple of months ago, we had a mystery speaker and mystery musicians, and now we even have mystery chefs. We had a Christmas market in December, which brought together a lot of people, and was just really fun.

What do you think are the elements that make for a successful collaboration?

RENYUNG: The first thing is that everyone shares the same vision and big picture. That must be established and shared by everybody, so everyone knows: Who is leading it? Who is supporting? Who is defining this? Who is giving what? This way, everybody is clear on what their roles are and what every person brings to the table, the separate skillsets they’re bringing that add to the whole. And of course, a fair agreement on the consequences of the collaboration must be made right from the beginning, so that any benefit is shared fairly.

KEN: People tend to think about collaboration in very project-based terms; it seems to be becoming a trend nowadays for a fashion brand to work with another or with a photographer for this one project or one event, which is then billed as “a collaboration between these two”. What we’ve started to realise is that that’s not so much what collaboration is about. True collaboration is more like leading life together, in the same space. For example, we host a digital user experience firm called Paperplane, and them being able to work, within Kennel itself, with Myles&More, a company that does authentic storytelling through film – to conduct interviews or supply their clients with a new product, just by being in the same space – is the real essence of collaboration. Kennel being quite young, no massive collaborative projects have come out of it just yet – we have quite a few in the pipeline, but right now most of the collaboration in Kennel happens by going through life together, rather than just doing work together. What we get excited about is not the output of a project, but the kind of person that comes out of it. For me, a success is not a collaborative project, but a collaborative person.

Kennel frames the individual in terms of “who they are, not what they do”. Could you elaborate on this outlook?

RENYUNG: People always ask us if being a “creative entrepreneur” means they have to be a designer, et cetera, but we aren’t defined along industry lines – what people do – the way a lot of co-working spaces are. Everyone here has a very different background. When people want to become a member of Kennel, we ask them their intentions behind joining the community, and find out where they’re coming from, what their passion is, and so on, because we think it’s important that those things be recognised. We go by who they are, meaning the values that they hold. The values that we consider most important for creativity are respect – respect for others’ ideas, respect for diversity – curiosity, lateral thinking, honesty and openness. And all of that will bring about collaboration and creativity.

KEN: Values come above everything else in Kennel – we’re really passionate about our values here. I think sometimes what people do can get in the way of them expressing who they are; for a lot of people, their identity is tied to their successes and their occupation, and they see that as the entirety of who they are, when there’s actually a lot more than that going on beneath the surface. Especially when networking nowadays, people come to the table constantly going “this is me, these are my accomplishments”, but since we put values first, we don’t just look at a person’s facade like that, and what we’ve found is that people don’t like to see themselves that way anymore either. Like if I look at you and say “oh, you’re just an architect”… people no longer appreciate being pigeonholed like that.

What challenges have you encountered in your work at Kennel?

KEN: On the cultural side of it, we’re dealing with something quite new here – there’s no business model for it, no standard operating procedure. You go on gut feeling a lot of the time, and not having a structure can get quite frustrating. Things are falling into place now and we’re starting to understand what works, but it’s still being sorted out. And of course, as with anything else, funding is really tough, because you want to run an open, non-exclusive community which everyone can access, but at the same time you need to pay your rent. To be honest, I thought one of the biggest challenges would be getting people to understand what Kennel is, but for some reason people seem to be very receptive to and accepting of the concept.

RENYUNG: It intuitively made sense to them. Getting people to understand the culture of Kennel, in terms of the vibe, was not hard. Getting them to understand the business model and co-working culture, getting them to be open to working alongside someone who’s a stranger from a different business, was a bit harder. There was a difference in the types of questions we got from people – those who had lived outside Singapore, or had perhaps been in a place like this before, understood that they could be working here one day and there the next, working beside this business one day and beside a different one another day, and were comfortable with that uncertainty. In contrast, quite a lot of people here like the culture and community, but still want to be in a closed space of their own, for that feeling of security and routine. So we’re still searching for the right mix in terms of physical space.

KEN: Ren acts as what we call a “catalyst” to get those uneasy people to settle down – she sets the mood and models the vibe by coming in here and interacting with everybody. And like she mentioned, before people come in, we sit down and have a very in-depth conversation with them about what’s important to them, so that they enter Kennel in the right frame of mind. We make sure we set expectations.

What are the future plans for Kennel? Are any expansions slated to take place?

KEN: The main reason why Kennel exists is to facilitate a transformation in culture, and we’d love to see more Kennels, but establishing more Kennels around Singapore or Asia or even the world would not be for the sake of making more money. If someone, say in Indonesia, really wants to start another Kennel because the need has arisen in that cultural context, then we’d be happy to do that. Right now, we’re looking at the possibility of expanding Kennel beyond a workspace. It could become a cafe, or a shop – a different kind of experience. We’re open to that as well. We’re still in flux.

What is the most significant thing you have learnt from your experiences at Kennel?

KEN: It’s very easy for people to come into a conversation telling you what they have, what their achievements are, and what they can bring to the table. I find that it’s really hard for a person, myself included, to come with no baggage and just receive advice or another person’s story. But I’ve realised that entering into a conversation with my hands empty can be a very beautiful thing, and my work at Kennel has helped me to leave behind that baggage and be more accepting when interacting with people. 

RENYUNG: The biggest thing I’ve taken away from Kennel is that randomness is a good thing, but your values must always stay the same. I think I’ve changed the way I approach things – I was previously more results-oriented, but now I accord a lot more importance to the vision and values I start out with. Those are the foundation, and if they’re firmly settled, I have more faith that everything else will fall into place eventually. In the past I would instead look at what I wanted to achieve and work backwards. And I used to like to be in control of everything that happened around me, but after hearing about so many journeys of discovery and stories about how people look back on their lives and realise that everything that happened to them was connected, I’ve been able to change my perspective and see more connections between things that seemed disparate and random before. So I’ve realised the value in exposing yourself to as many new things as possible, even things that might not make sense at the time.

What do you think of the entrepreneurial scene in Singapore, and how can it be developed further?

KEN: It’s really exciting right now, and I think what Singapore probably needs is a change of mindset among local Singaporeans, because people seem to think that it’s such a small place that there aren’t enough resources or a large enough market for everybody. That needs to change, and there needs to be a lot more collaboration, non-competition and honesty. 

RENYUNG: The current push for entrepreneurship is partly driven by the government and institutions and big agencies, who are all promoting it for economic reasons. What interests me, though, is the reason why individuals are turning to entrepreneurship – they’re looking for meaning. People are looking toward entrepreneurship as a vehicle to express themselves and self-actualise. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but they’re not necessarily very clear on what they want to be an entrepreneur of. I’m fascinated by how people are using this philosophy of work as self-definition, and using the kinds of businesses they engage in as a means of defining their lives, also because they’re looking to move away from the work-life balance issues of our parents’ generation. So it’s a whole generational shift in thinking, in terms of identity and what is important in life. Flexibility and variety are becoming more important; meaning is now much more variable and subjective. And this is all taking place in the context of a young nation that is trying to find its place in the world. That’s what I find most interesting about entrepreneurship in Singapore. As for further improvements, I think soft capital is what is needed right now. In the academic institutions and businesses, there’s a lot of infrastructure to help entrepreneurs, like the incubation centres and training schemes – all that is knowledge, but it’s not soft capital like what School of Thought provides, namely a support group that cultivates confidence and resilience in the face of change. What’s missing are systems that build the entrepreneurial character, not the entrepreneurial mind. That has to do with the way members of society respond to each other – the way parents support or disapprove of their children’s choices, and the way the education system funnels us down certain paths.

 KEN: Something that Singapore entrepreneurs need, especially because a lot of them are young, is shepherding, fathering – a community that can support them and build that kind of entrepreneurial character.

RENYUNG: Another major problem with the way we approach entrepreneurship is that we overlook so much about the process, and just have our minds on the concrete outcome of building a profitable company. The Singaporean education system tends to make you feel that if you can’t quantify something, if you have nothing tangible to show, you shouldn’t do it, but entrepreneurship is about being comfortable with uncertainty and taking risks. So what we’ve done at Kennel is make it about the person and not the output, focusing on the process and what you’re doing at the present.

What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs out there?

RENYUNG: Develop a support system and find mentors.

KEN: It’s okay to mess up.

Profiled by Lim Zi Song

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

-The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Tay Lai Hock
Founder, Ground-Up Initiative (GUI)
Age: 48
URL: http://groundupinitiative.org/

http://www.facebook.com/groundupinitiative

Tay Lai Hock is the founder of Ground-Up Initiative(GUI). Ground-Up Initiative (GUI) [pronounced Gee-U-Aye] is a volunteer-driven non-profit community that seeks to restore the connection between city dwellers and the land for the many universal values and life skills it teaches us. Since 2009, GUI is housed at Sustainable Living Kampung (SL Kampung) in Bottle Tree Park, Yishun, in the island city state of Singapore.

How did GUI come about?

I did this several years ago when I wanted to show others that we may not be the best, but we [Singaporeans] are not terrible. There are many different motivations, one of the main one is that I felt that Singapore needs a place like this[GUI], that allows different people to work, hands on, different things, be it art, planting, cooking, architecture, humanitarian, all housed under one roof. Its not just doing what they like, but do it in a community setting.

I find that there is a disconnection between humans and the land. In Singapore, “Land” is a property, something to be sold, and not something social. There is no spiritual, emotional connection. The place you see here, at Sustainable Living Kampung is all built by volunteers, who painstakingly used recycled materials to build the whole place up. People don’t build their own houses anymore. When there is a disconnection between you, and the land, what would happen to Singaporeans? We become apathetic and self centered.

What is then, the main difference between the nature clubs and GUI?

We are not a green club, but a “hands on” community; a community that wants to revive the good old kampung spirit. It isn’t the kampung spirit that is archaic, stored in the museum. Many younger people came over and said “I don’t know what Kampung Spirit is, until I came here”. They understood the spirit that embodies connection.

GUI can be summed up by two words, Connect and Heal. You come here you learn how to connect within yourselves. Here, we emphasize on the notion of “respect[ing] all life”. You learn how to connect to yourself first. That’s why all activities we do are about grounded-ness. The word humility, was derived from the Latin word, humus, which means, soil, similar to the Chinese saying, 脚踏实地.

Connect within yourself, then to each other. You take time off from the digital indulgences, and allow yourself to build your other senses and your heart. And then, connect yourself to the nature.

We connect in order to participate in the healing process, to heal our own heart and soul. That’s why we have social delinquents, old folks and people from all walks of life here. We have people with all kind of issues here, wanting to find themselves. They start to find comfort here, then they find peace, clarity. They find purpose and meaning [in their lives].

Do you then, see yourself as a social worker or sustainable living advocate?

I see myself as a soul sculptor. The word “sculpture”, denotes that it’s a long process, and takes time. I don’t change people. I let people come here and be inspired, and feel the need to change themselves. Everyone needs to find their own purpose for the change. Bit by bit, people will slowly find their own purpose. But of course, everyone needs a bit of guidance. That’s where my role comes in. I always tell people, if there is one thing I want you to farm, it’s your heart, and then, garden your soul.

Since you have so many volunteers here, what do you think is the biggest difference you see in them from the first time they joined you?

For the core members, and those who chose to stay, you find them more grounded, more at ease, and more personable. There is a culture here, where you take time, to talk to others. You need to be able to look into people’s eyes, and speak. It’s the human connection and interaction which is very important in every society. This place is about making you care. Why do people want to care? They may not have founded GUI, but they have the same belief, and in doing so, they meet others, and inspiring them further.

I recently told off a Swedish lady, I told her, Singapore may be a small little country, but we are not so insignificant as she was commenting that “Singaporeans think that Singapore is very significant, but you guys are [actually] very insignificant.”  There were other Singaporeans there, who dare not even stand up to speak. Singaporeans don’t usually like to confront. Nobody says anything, we just keep quiet. Here, I want people to learn how to speak up, to speak up for a purpose, and not be confrontational. To respectfully disagree.

That’s why people keep coming back. They become grounded, become connected. They become driven. And the most important thing, it is not done for profit. Many would willingly sacrifice their hours and time from their jobs, and spending more time here.

I heard about you wanting to create a fifth university for Singapore?

The lease for our land is ending and we are trying to collaborate with as many people as possible (including the Bottle Tree owners) to use this space for social, community and even humanitarian purposes. We want to tell the government that a piece of land is needed [for such activities] for Singapore. We know that the lease is expiring. And I have told my team, that before it expires, we need to redefine the purpose of this entire piece of land.

So last year, I told them, perhaps this piece of land could become the fifth university in Singapore – Singapore Open University of Life (SOUL). We need to give Singapore a soul. We need to give the world a soul. We have many visitors from overseas who visited us[GUI], and realized that our model is very unique and so unique that many foreigners told me “Lai Hock, GUI may have the solution to the world’s issues” I felt so excited when I heard that! But the only reason why we could do (what we are doing) that is because we have this space.

Without this space, our activities will not have the breadth and the depth. Just like how you often hear people say that Singapore is a souless society. And even the Wozniak guy said that Singapore has no talent because we are so stifling?

What change did you see in yourself after setting up GUI?

I think when I started GUI, many good people came in, and they were leaders in their own rights. I had a question: How do I lead these people? I need to be an even better leader, as number one, I don’t have the skills like many of them. But I have the capacity to see things differently.

In the last four years, I have become more appreciative of the meaning of “everything is connected”. I definitely became a better person in my own way. How do you tell that somebody that what they are doing is not quite right? How do you engage members? I have members who disappeared, and I have to go down to their homes, to bring them back. I founded GUI, and I [know I] needed to bring in people. I gained a deeper understanding of “interconnection”. You may not be aware that what you are doing now has huge impact later on. I became very aware, and very mindful.

How would you define the culture in GUI?

After backpacking for 4 years, I came back and did a lot of things and realize that there is a disconnection. I wanted to nurture leaders. We need to nurture leaders to be different. Currently, our education system teaches you to be of one dimension, to be economic machines. Everything is about economy. There is nothing wrong with such a policy. We need to have such fundamentals to sustain ourselves. But we’ve become so driven in this aspect, that we forgot the other things in life. I want to convey the message, that the meaning of education should be different. I may not be the only one doing it. But I definitely have created this space to get my members to challenge themselves and push these boundaries. We need to nurture leaders differently. What type of leadership are we talking about?

I would think we need someone who is a thinker. Not just traditional mainstream thinking, but you need to differently, to think compassionately, to think sustainably, and to relook at the whole issue and see how, in the pursuit of our success model, not to hurt the Earth. This is not in our current education system.

The second thing I want to nurture is for people to become warrior. The idea of thinker and warrior came from the Chinese proverb, 文武双全, where the Chinese emperor is selecting his subjects, he would want them to be a scholar and to be a warrior. In GUI, the concept of “warrior” is someone good with his hands, the “hands on” culture. There are no qualms to get your hands dirty. Also, I am referring to the mental resilience. A person who is versatile and can adapt, and has a lot of inner strength.

However, “能文能武” is not good enough, you also must be able to 能动土(work on the soil), which I translate to “farmers”. I do not mean that you need to be a farmer, in the agricultural industry. But I want you to understand the meaning of the land. You need to appreciate the weather, the land. You become very grounded. It is not just appreciating nature. If you go to Botanic Gardens, it is also nature, but it’s a very organized [nature], prim and proper, “PAP”. It is very manicured. Interpreting the meaning of the land, I took the interpretation as Benjamin Franklin ever said – There are only but three ways to make a living, firstly, through war, like what the Roman does, conquering land, robbing resources. But this, is barbaric. The second is through commerce, trading. This is cheating. And I know it. I have been in the corporate world for 11 years; I know what is all about. The third is through agriculture, farming. What you plant, is what you will reap. It is an honest way of living.  A thinker, a warrior, a farmer. This is GUI leadership.

How would you like to engage the people you may not have reached out to?

First, they need to know. You can only care when you know. After the awareness, comes understanding. You have to realize that “well, this is important in my life”.

Then, you will have a struggle, like most people do. The competing, conflicting priorities that you feel, which are more important. But you have to understand, why is this important in your whole life, your society or your community eventually?

Then comes acceptance. You accept that there is a trade-off for what you want to do. By spending my time here, I forego other pleasures in my life. One of the things about GUI members is that material pursuits are not something high on their priority list.

After acceptance, you must start to come in to do something, to be involved. It need not be GUI, and I will tell people, if you have the leadership, you should go ahead and do what you believe. Why do I do this? I have the leadership capacity, to stand up and rally people to the cause; I have accepted this role. And I must accept it happily and willingly. This is very important. A lot of people do things, but they are grumpy, they are reluctant. One must accept the role, and start to rally. So, let’s say there is someone who believes in something and has the leadership capacity, and they should do something about it. If you don’t have the skills and talents, go and find people to join you, and give them a chance to play their part. Or else, you could go and pick up the skills. Start small.

Many a times, people come to me, to tell me that they want to change the world, but they don’t succeed even the first step. You must first find out exactly what is your interest. You must care, and then love what you are doing. If you don’t love what you are doing, the project will not sustain.

And in loving what you are doing, you have to realize that there are sacrifices, or rather, trade-offs. Last night, I was at Esplanade and I exclaimed, “Wow, I haven’t been here for a long time! Never have I seen Marina Bay Sands from such an angle.” But it’s worth it.

So, platforms like yours should promote such causes, to make more people aware.

Name: Jeremy Au
Age: 24
Location: Singapore
Organisation: Conjunct Consulting
Title: Co-founder
Email: jeremyau@conjunctconsulting.org
Website: http://conjunctconsulting.org

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Jeremy Au is the co-founder of Conjunct Consulting, a non-profit organisation that provides pro bono social impact consulting services for Asia’s non-profits and social enterprises. By deploying teams of trained student and professional volunteers, Conjunct Consulting assists social sector decision-makers with the strategies, tools and information necessary to achieve maximum impact for the community. Six months old, Conjunct Consulting has been wildly successful – growing from an idea sketched out on a pad of paper into a non-profit organization with over 100 student and professional members across the 3 universities in Singapore.

What’s the inspiration behind Conjunct Consulting?

For many years, I volunteered at many different levels: sealing envelopes, packing bags, opening doors. I enjoyed all these experiences, and wanted to be more deeply involved. So I started studying how to increase my social impact and taking part in activities that showed me what works and what doesn’t in the social sector.

During my time in Berkeley, I was very fortunate to work with The Berkeley Group, which provides pro bono consulting services to non-profit organisations in California. I had a wonderful experience with a great group of students who were passionate about making a difference. At the same time, the projects allowed us to understand the challenges the social sector faces, the everyday trade-offs and the painful decisions a leader has to make while serving the community and keeping the organisation alive.

I knew that Asia deserved the same opportunity – for volunteers and the social sector to work together better. Every social sector leader deserves the very best – the best strategies, the best information and the best tools needed to make the right decisions for our community. We also needed to revolutionise volunteerism by moving away from the current hours-based paradigm to a system that allows us to use the best of our skills.

Kwok Jia Chuan, my co-founder, and I first made contact in the early summer of last year. Within four short months, we managed to create this nucleus of energy and bring together the resources needed to make it happen. Conjunct Consulting was officially founded in August 2011 with a small team of dedicated volunteers. Since then, we’ve grown by leaps and bounds because the team I’m so privileged to work with is an amazing one. We have a lot of fun together, we share the same passion for volunteerism and we trust each other.

How exactly does a consultation work?

Fundamentally, we need to know where we want to be, where we are, and how to get there. First, we need to know what our organisation is about – mission, vision and values. We ask ourselves, what is the change we want to see in the world? Second, we figure out where we are. What are our programmes, who are the people we’re serving and how do the things we do align with what we want to achieve? Third, we plan how to cross the gap between the change we want to achieve and who we are now. That’s where the operational factors come in. How do we run and market an entire operation? How much money does it take? What are the commitments we expect of our leaders and volunteers to make it happen? Throughout this process, we work with our clients saying, “Let’s solve this problem together.”

What happens on our side is that a team of volunteers, drawn from a pool of trained students and professionals, comes together to help our clients solve their problems. The fundamental principle every team holds is that we must understand not just their mission, vision, and values, but also their environment, the people they serve, and their strengths through interviews, industry research and benchmarking. With this richer understanding, the team can now synthesise the information and develop a set of solutions. The entire process is built on strong communication between all parties to ensure that everyone is on the same page. The consultation is always a good experience because we’re all here for the same reason: to change our communities for the better.

Sometimes, the magnitude of a challenge can be very daunting. Decision-makers are often confronted with problems that are beyond any one individual’s ability to understand. That’s where our team steps in to help them make better decisions by understanding, synthesizing and simplifying the problem, and empowering them with the confidence, knowledge and data to develop the right solution. It is a two-way relationship: the teams get to learn about the client and the challenges they face, and the clients are strengthened with the passion and skills of a highly motivated and trained team. It is a win-win relationship for everyone involved.

What is the greatest challenge you’ve faced?

When we first started out, the key obstacle we faced was scepticism. People were questioning how the Conjunct Consulting model worked and their role in it, and they were rightfully concerned about how it would be managed.

After all, we are a new model of volunteerism and a new system that changes how the social sector works. It’s scary for everyone; it’s terrifying and it’s risky. Who’s to say that this organisation will be able to deliver what they promised? People often wish to help, but it’s difficult to take the plunge if you’re faced with a new idea. It is imperative of the people within the venture to make their case as best as they can.

The way we went about facing this problem was finding the people who believed in the same cause we did, rather than focusing on the skepticism. When you first seek your team, it’s not about quantity; it’s not about persuading 100% of the community to join you. It’s about finding that 1% that is willing to trust you, work together to build the services, deliver on our promises and exceed everyone’s expectations. Then go back to those who were reluctant to step forward and say, “Hey, let’s try this again.”

How have you grown as a person from this experience?

Growing this organisation with a team of very dedicated volunteers has strengthened my belief in the power of helping people. What’s really amazing is seeing an idea come to fruition in our community and knowing that this was only made possible by people who are passionate, committed and driven. I have learned so much from them: they’ve taught me about what it really means to serve effectively and efficiently in a way that is truly impactful for everyone.

What is the social impact you’ve seen as a result of these consultations?

We’ve seen for ourselves the results and impact of our work in various communities. We follow the news of our clients and check in regularly with them to discuss how our recommendations are working out in real life. It’s empowering to see all your hours of research translate into something that is deployed on ground, into an actual dollar that a child can use, into additional volunteer man-hours for the elderly who require it. These are the results that keep us volunteers coming back for more.

It has also been a very humbling experience. When we’re working with numbers, words and information, it’s sometimes possible to forget that behind every digit is a human person; it’s about someone’s life being impacted for better or for worse. To know that our work involves real people and translates into real impact helps us remember that we’re part of a larger movement working to positively impact the lives of others.

We also understand that at the end of the day, our clients are the ones who are fighting on the frontline every day, hour and minute. Sure, we do bring in our skills and contributions to the table, yet it is nothing compared to the blood, sweat and tears of the people who are out in the field. The heroes that we should really respect are the people who are out there fighting for our communities.

I understand that you’re currently working on two beta-phase social impact ventures. Could you tell us more about them?

In my free time, I’ve been working on two ideas that are admittedly a little unconventional. The first venture, Billioncare, is fundamentally about success. If you’ve seen the movie “The Social Network”, there’s a part where Sean Parker asked Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, “You know what’s cooler than a million dollar? A billion dollars.” What’s interesting is not that people find a billion dollars cooler than a million dollars, but why we’re measuring ourselves against dollars.

Billioncare redefines success such that it isn’t about having a billion dollars, but about making a billion social impacts. The people we should really be looking up to are the people who’ve inspired, mentored, and empowered. We need to rethink the way we see ourselves and this project provides the tools necessary to track our social impact based on the values we hold ourselves accountable to. What everyone can do with these tools is to estimate the extent to which they directly impact society and how much their actions ripple across the community. Basically, we empower them to live by their value systems in a way that works for themselves and ultimately for our society.

The second venture, Equivalent Utility, is an attempt at valuing the invaluable. I remember being asked a question: which is more valuable – a tree or a baby? The interesting part is not the value itself, but the way we go about valuing it. The world of economics has an unfortunate tendency to reduce trees and people to their economic value in dollars and cents. We measure people by the economic value they generate and the value of nature by the economic value that is destroyed when we chop it down. We have it backwards.

We don’t think about the economic value of a person, instead we make decisions based on trade-offs. By allowing individuals to make a series of trade-offs between invaluable objects, we’re able to calculate the equivalent value of many things. By understanding these trade-offs and aggregating the responses across many people, we can understand their collective preferences and desired trade-offs to an extent that has not been captured before. We’re no longer trying to reduce invaluable things into dollars and cents; we’re trying to understand the differing values that we assign to the things we hold dear.

Last words for aspiring consultants/ future founders of social enterprises?

Collaborate, mentor and be mentored, inspire and be inspired.

The common thread is that you can do so much more as a team. By collaborating, you create results far greater than what you could ever have done on your own. Every teammate can bring to the table very different things, and through this combination you form a whole greater than its parts.

Mentorship is more than just collaborating at the same level – it’s about mentoring people below you such that you can equip them to do what you do, and allowing yourself to be mentored by others so they too can empower and equip you to do more. All of us have had our own personal journeys and there’s a lot to learn from different experiences.

Lastly, inspire and be inspired. We oftentimes keep our heads down, and forget that people need encouragement and inspiration to dare to take that step forward. Other times, we grow sceptical, sometimes even cynical about the way the world works. It will benefit all of us to live life with wonder at the probabilities and possibilities that made us who we are today, and allow ourselves to be inspired by the world and people around us.

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.” – Abraham Lincoln

Bio:

Title: Founding President, Orchestra of the Music Makers
Age: 24
Location: Singapore
Contact: guanwei@orchestra.sg
Site: http://www.orchestra.sg

On top of being an engineering undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, Lee Guan Wei pursued his passion for music as the founding President and violinist at the Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM). His experience in leading the orchestra has spurred him on to help other non-profits as the Assistant Director (Projects) of Conjunct Consulting, a consulting group that helps non-profits maximise their social impact.

Under the baton of music director Prof. Chan Tze Law, OMM has shown tremendous growth in merely 3 years. Besides achieving musical excellence and garnering international accolades, their noble vision of pursuing philanthropy through music has seen them raise large sums of funds for charitable organisations each year.

Could you tell me how OMM came to be and what inspired you to set it up?

I’m hesitant to say that I set it up because it’s a collective effort. OMM is a people-driven organization rather than a personality-driven one. The idea came about around 2006 when a few of us discussed the possibility of setting up a symphony orchestra to provide an opportunity for people who were graduating from their school orchestras a channel to continue making music. The founding members mainly started out as members of their school string orchestra or symphonic band, yet we never got the chance to play symphony orchestra music.

We thought it was a shame all these people didn’t get to have that opportunity. But after we graduated, where could we go? Where else could we continue to make music? There were ideas to set up a school alumni orchestra, but we wanted it to be bigger than that. We wanted the orchestra to encompass musicians from all walks of life; whether you’ve graduated from ITE or Poly or JCs, or just a musician who’s interested. So we thought, “Why not form an independent orchestra?” We had talks with our current music director, Professor Chan Tze Law, who helped us develop the idea. One day in 2008, he linked us up with HSBC, which was then looking for an orchestra to perform at a concert featuring their past Youth Excellence Award winners. Having toyed with the idea for two years, we already knew musicians we could contact and just 2 days later, we managed to form a decent-sized orchestra of about 80 people.

OMM was something that was waiting to happen; it just needed some sort of catalyst to drive it forward and the HSBC concert was exactly what was needed to make it come true. After the concert, we decided to officially register the orchestra since we already found ourselves a group of passionate musicians. We initially wanted to just get together to read some music and have two to three performances a year, but we ended up doing an average of five to six concerts a year because the opportunities somehow kept coming.

We also wanted to do something meaningful with our music. One of the names originally thrown up was “Singapore Charity Orchestra”, because we wanted to do fundraising concerts to help the needy. While serving the community through music is still part of the orchestra’s charter and ideals, we found ourselves hard-pressed due to operational considerations. Nevertheless, we still try to incorporate outreach or fundraising as part of performances whenever possible.

How did you manage your time between university and the orchestra? Any difficulties along the way?

When we first started out I always found myself flying around doing orchestra work, and I used to joke with my friends that I’m a full time manager and a part-time university student. When you start something, you take it upon yourself to see things through and make things run smoothly, and sometimes you will find yourself working till 3 or 4am but you’ll do it because that’s essentially what you set out to do. Things have settled down a bit more now, but there’s still a lot more work to be done and opportunities to be explored.

I guess most organizations face monetary issues when they first start out. Where are we going to find the funds we need? Will people even support us?  It’s a classic chicken-and-egg situation – if you don’t have the reputation, people won’t give you money; if you don’t have the money, you can’t build your reputation. But you have to start moving somewhere, and that’s what we did. We managed to get a little bit of funding from the National Arts Council, Tote Board and Lee Foundation though our first few performances were quite small-scale. We basically had to “beg-steal-borrow” instruments and facilities to minimise costs and somehow we managed to get through. We’re more established now and it amazes me as I look back on our progress over the last 3 years.

Sometimes, it is very tiring writing up grants, doing the finances, marketing and publicising our events and managing the musicians; there is so much to do. But I would say that OMM has a good team. We always try to get new people into the Management to even out the workload and give people a chance to lead the orchestra. Despite all the hard work and our anxiety, we’re thoroughly satisfied whenever we successfully complete an event.

How have these obstacles shaped your life?

OMM has turned out to be quite a large part of my life, which was something I hadn’t expected 3 years ago. When we started back then, it just seemed like a good thing to do. We didn’t think that far or expect such amazing progress within such a short period of time. Setting up OMM for me turned out to be a form of parallel education to my university courses, perhaps what you could call “education-by-fire”. It forced me to learn things I’d not have otherwise been exposed to – marketing strategies, design, accounting procedures, legal matters, managing teams, making things happen, dealing with stakeholders and selling ideas to supporters and sponsors. My team and I had to figure out these things in order to get the orchestra running. It also taught me that as long as you are driven to learn, there’s a vast amount of resources out there for you to tap on.

How can Singapore’s arts scene be developed further?

If you look at the statistics, the number of arts groups officially in existence just about doubled within the last 5 years. But the thing is, the support base hasn’t grown as much. Only 40% of Singaporeans attend at least one arts event each year (of which classical music is an even smaller proportion of the 40%), which means a large majority of Singaporeans do not have the arts as part of their lives at all. For classical music there are the usual barriers – the audience don’t find such music appealing to them, it doesn’t entertain them, it’s not like their happy Justin Bieber song and they’d rather not listen to it – but I feel that’s the kind of attitude that needs to be changed either through education or getting people to understand what music and art is all about. If you look at costs, tickets to classical music concerts are comparable or even cheaper than a night out to the movies. Analogous to a movie which is an artistic arrangement of moving visuals and sounds to tell a story, music is an artistic arrangement of tones and sound colours to tell its own story; it’s not that difficult to appreciate if some effort is put in to understand the thinking and structure behind the music. Unfortunately there is also the stereotype that the arts are only for the elite and educated. But when you get involved in arts and culture by doing and creating, it grows on you regardless of your background.

The government is trying quite hard to develop the arts, as you can see from the increase in funds, construction of new facilities and implementation of new initiatives. However the other side of the coin is that private giving and volunteering in the arts are not doing so well, making up 1-2% of all donations and volunteer man hours spent every year. If citizens and corporations don’t get involved in the arts, then they don’t really have a stake in the development of Singapore’s culture. There’s a limit to how far the government can push the arts; ultimately, culture is a ground-up initiative.

What are some future plans for OMM?

Our 2012 season has already been planned. We’re involved in the Singapore Arts Festival this year, which is great. We’re also looking forward to touring Prague, Bratislava and the UK in June/July. 2012 is more of a year of growth for the orchestra, and hopefully with an increased profile we can get a lot more mileage for future community projects. 2013 will be our 5^th anniversary and we’re trying to plan more community and outreach events, such as educational concerts and maybe inviting people to sit in at our rehearsals and understand what goes on behind the music. In a sense, it pushes a more educational aspect which we think needs to be developed in Singapore.

The nature of the organization also means unexpected opportunities come along and you end up doing more things because people notice you. This is probably how we ended up doing 5 or 6 concerts although we started out planning only 2 or 3. So it’s hard to say for sure what OMM will be doing in the next 5 or even 10 years. We’re always open to collaborations and how we can work with different groups of people to deliver a good event and reach out to more people. It often results in a really busy concert season, but it also means we have more chances to make an impact.

Any advice for aspiring musicians?

At some point in time, every budding musician questions how they’re going to support their family or if they want to run the risk of becoming a starving artist, so there are a lot of people who graduate from school with a lot of musical training but end up in non-musical careers for the “stability”. That is the case for a lot of people and we accept that.

OMM was initially set up for these people who didn’t want to pursue music full-time. But we have also seen people who initially planned to pursue a non-music career but decided to take up music full-time after going through all the concerts and all the music. That may have been an unintended consequence, but perhaps it’s for the better!  Whatever the case, I would say that once you’re a musician, you should always consider yourself a musician no matter where you are. That’s also why the orchestra is called what it is – you’ll always be a music maker and you’ll always dream of doing things with your music. That’s what OMM is about.

// Profiled by Amanda Chan

Title: Innovator and Inventor
Age: 26
Location: Singapore
Contact: jedipzx [at] gmail.com

A young undergraduate at the Nanyang Technological University, Zheng Xiang innovated new applications of technology on many fronts in Singapore, including national security, counter-terrorism efforts, education, and community bonding. These earned him multiple local and international awards; in 2010, he was recognized by Microsoft as a “Star of Tomorrow” and awarded an internship opportunity where he worked with renowned names in the field.

His concern for the community has led him to spearheading countless tech-related projects that seeks to transform lives with the innovative use of computer technology. Beyond his technological pursuits, Zheng Xiang is a fervid sportsman who captained the NTU table tennis team, an enthusiastic debater, and a community leader.

Three coolest innovations or inventions you’ve come up with?

One of my most significant innovations is the Innovative Pass Verification System (IPVS) for the Singapore Armed Forces, which changes how different security departments work together to identify non-authorized personnel entering compounds and premises. Because a physical guard cannot remember the faces of many people, I thought of a system that allows SAF to detect identity of personnel and non-personnel and virtually tag information to a physical pass. Each of these systems costs about $800,000 in commercial value, and I built 33 of them for SAF while I was serving my national service.

There was also my first notable invention, which was a fan filter that traps dust I invented when I was 13 which was later sent for patent application and is seen now in widespread use.

The third would be the iChat with Merly and Lyo application I designed for the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore to enable connect youths internationally, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. This was a project that was entirely ground-up – we didn’t take a single cent from the organizers, worked independently to create the App and the portal, and managed to convince them to launch it.

You talk a lot about transforming lives in the community through technology. Care to share how you’ve been doing that?

I’ve been a volunteer for around 10 years now, and I found the community a great platform to transform lives through the innovative use of computer technology. One of the first projects I piloted for young children in the community was “We Love Learning”, which employed computer technology in story telling and has been running for six years now. One of my recently launched projects was the “Singapore 1^st Community-based Point, Shoot and Explore” project in Woodlands GRC, which allows people to scan a matrix code printed on banners and posters using their smartphones to get information about activities in the community readily.  One great thing about developing a dynamic matrix code is that it allows for live updates, which is useful since event banners are usually printed way before the event itself, and this technology enables event organizers to change content and update residents readily because they can change content live. Important announcement can also be spread around more quickly and conveniently.

I believe that technology transcends age; I’m a believer in innovation-driven intergeneration framework – involving bonding of youth and senior citizens to promote active citizenry and active ageing via use of technology. The framework seeks to close up of digital divide and generational gap between the youths and the elderly. It’s an uphill task but it’s rewarding when you see an 80-year-old grandparent able to play Angry Birds with their grandchildren after learning to use the tablet computer! I think it’s important that we don’t leave the older generation behind in the rapid waves of technological progress.

What made you feel so strongly about the community and giving back to Singapore?

In addition to the computer science major, I’m also pursuing public administration and foreign policy. I realized that Singapore is actually a very vulnerable country and its success up-to-date should not be taken for granted. As I visited other countries, I started to appreciate Singapore’s achievements over the short span of 40 years – although we’re so small, we have achieved a lot on a global level, and there’s a lot we should be thankful for. Giving back to the society became one of my personal priorities.

We always worry about the future of Singapore, but we sometimes forget about the present. Are we acting on it today? And if we are, what are we doing today to contribute? Innovations can come in terms of invention of a new technology, but I’m more concerned foremost about the usefulness of it in transforming lives of people.

There are people out there who see National Service as a waste of two precious years, and that the notion of a “thinking soldier” is almost oxymoronic. You seem to think otherwise and have done a lot to prove that through innovation, didn’t you?

Two weeks into national service as a Basic Military Training recruit, I galvanized some 80 volunteers in BMT to help me in a pilot project to make our two years more meaningful and memorable. When you’re in National Service, you tend to feel quite disconnected with life outside of camps, and the same goes for your loved ones. Parents miss their sons, and girlfriends miss their boyfriends. So I thought of an idea that create some sort of connection, to let our loved ones out there know what we’re doing in the grueling weeks of training. Moving from bunk to bunk, I pulled together a journal team and convinced officers to permit our members to bring their cameras into camps and take pictures, set up blogs for recruits to communicate with their family back at home. The CDs we pass out during the Passing Out Parades was born out of this initiative as well. It was quite physically demanding setting up sites and sorting photos over and above our duties as recruits, but my team of dedicated volunteers made it possible.

I was a debater as well, and after some time in the army realized the difficulty of inculcating values through a top-down approach. It’s difficult to understand the rationale behind what we do in army sometimes – especially when it involves the sacrifice of two precious years of our lives – and a top-down approach for education doesn’t make it any simpler. So instead of having others explain it to us, I thought, why not thrash it out among ourselves? I started a debate about national education and National Service in camp and managed to persuade the officers to ferry debate judges to preside over formal debates in camps.

Advice for youths and innovators/inventors wannabe out there?

Innovation and invention share a same characteristic: they are both about thinking out of the box, thinking about something no one else have thought about or adopted. So there is bound to be resistance to change. Innovation sometimes requires the changing of the current flow, of how society works presently. Otherwise a totally new invention – being out of sync with the general flow – can become an additional chore for people. Creating something that changes the status quo requires a double dose of effort… you must convince others why this change should be embraced. Changing the way things work doesn’t mean you have won the hearts and minds of people. A successful invention or innovation does that.

If an innovation is commercially viable, it’s probably a good one because it usually means it responds to a specific need or demand in society. Innovation is about improving productivity, transforming how things work… there’s a story of an old man making a difference to every starfish he throws back into the ocean; using the same analogy, innovation is devising something that can automatically throw starfishes back into the sea.

You know how it is that when we lose something we realize we once had? Innovation is the opposite, you do not know what you can have until it emerges and transforms your life. So dream IT, innovate IT, change IT and make-IT-happen. We should not ask what Singapore can do for us but what we can do for our nation…sail off the safe harbour, be courageous and creative to make the next transformation today, especially when it comes to the community.

// Profiled by Chan Chi Ling

• Title: Co-Founder and Creative Director at School of Thought
• Age: 35
• Location: Singapore
• Contact: yin@school-of-thought.com

Kuik Shiao-Yin is a co-founder and creative director of the Thought Collective, a collective comprising four companies – School of Thought, which offers tuition for General Paper and Language Arts; Food for Thought, a restaurant that recently saw the opening of its third branch at the Botanical Gardens; Think Tank Publishing which publishes magazines for students; and Thinkscape Learning Journeys, which offers learning and heritage trails for schools.

Tell us about how School of Thought came to be, and what motivated you to set it up.

It’s important for people to realize that none of the three directors “planned” this or thought about how to construct this right from the beginning; it was very organic and I think it’s useful for people to realize this. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that entrepreneurs are born that way, but I believe it is about a call and a response. It’s what makes you entrepreneurial in the end.

But I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after I came back in 2002 from the States where I did architecture. At around that time I talked to Tong Yee who was a good friend then, and he was telling me about his experience in NIE where he saw an interesting gap – a problem that all of us knew: kids that graduated from school were just quite self-centred; it didn’t matter whether you were an A or F student; it was all about you, not about your country, your society… yet there was this one subject at JC level that requires you to think about such things. It’s the one opportunity you have in the classroom to think about rights and wrongs and politics and all that but it’s taught so badly.

So there was a social gap. And there was also a market gap – no one specialized in GP tuition then because it was thought that it was an unteachable subject. So it was a market and social gap, and that was a perfect marriage.

Any stumbling blocks you encountered?

I did seriously think about ditching the business. When you’re young, not business trained and you start a company, a lot of it was by honorary and verbal agreement –so I was never really sure if everyone was in it. I wasn’t really sure if I was in it either… especially when my parents kept bugging me to find a proper job. What made me carry on was a bunch of kids from Anderson Junior College who came to me at the end of A levels telling me they wanted to keep learning but their parents wouldn’t pay since exams were over, so I decided to run tuition for free since they wanted to learn. I got them to propose things they wanted to learn and I’ll teach it. They said they wanted to learn why there’s good and evil, and why there’s suffering.

Those were big questions that few adults even bother asking, and I was so struck by how self-motivated the kids were. When I told them in jest that what’s fun would be to go ask some monk what he thinks of these questions, two of them actually went to a monk and asked, “This is what we studied – what do you think?” To me, it was a sign that this was a fruit of what could be and I told myself that even if my friends won’t come on board, I’ll figure out how to do this, though I didn’t believe I could do it alone. Thankfully, because I didn’t prematurely cut it off, my friends came on board full-time later on, and their expertise, distinctions and skill sets helped the company grow.

How did it lead to Broader Perspectives and Food for Thought, which has expanded to its third branch recently?

It was in 2007 that we shifted into doing all sorts of funny things. Everyone thought we were going to expand overseas to China, Malaysia and all that. We knew that was never what we wanted to do. We knew it had to be something to do with Singapore, but we didn’t have the words of it. We had been teaching for five years, and we had interesting insights that we wanted to put down on paper… we thought it’d be cool to come up with a magazine – and there again we saw a market and social gap: any teacher or student could tell you exactly the kind of magazine they needed, but no one was producing it. Everyone was subscribing to Times and Newsweek but those were not contextual to their need. It comes too frequently and it piles up, it assumes you know everything about America, and it’s too America-centric. All we had to do was to reverse-engineer it: make them less frequent, explain the terms, and make it more Singapore-centric… and Broader Perspectives was born!

As for Food for Thought – Liz (the other co-founder) was joking about how the bubble-tea shop opposite us was jacking up prices and we should undercut them. It was a joke but the joke turned serious. Ahtough we had no experience in opening restaurants, we thought it was true to our cause because we were always being pigeonholed as a tuition centre; when we opened up a restaurant, it broke us out of that mould and opened ourselves to the public rather than just teachers and students. It was a $100000 gamble it could bomb. Was it worthwhile doing it if it bombed? The answer was yes. We wanted to set up a restaurant where conversations can happen. We never wanted to start the restaurants in shopping centres and all that; the idea was to position ourselves in public institutions and add value to them For example, putting ourselves in the botanical gardens is about bringing value to a very precious institution in Singapore. The garden celebrates family life, rest and relaxation, so we designed the whole restaurant to be very family-friendly, representing the good life. The restaurants seek to reinforce whatever messages the place already is about.

What do you see as the mission of the Thought Collective?

Right now we have five companies, and each one has a big goal to reach. Over the years we have refined what our social mission is about. It is about helping to transform and strengthen the soft capital in Singapore. Singapore’s really great at hard capital. But all the stuff you need to create a culture of innovation, enterprise, creativity and all that kind of stuff… you need an X-factor. All the businesses we set up are about helping to create or reinforce that X factor.

Any advice for youths and entrepreneurs out there?

For entrepreneurs out there, Singapore – I swear – is one of the best places in the world for social innovations. As someone once aptly put it, Singapore could be the Silicon Valley for social innovations if it believed in it. It has all the possibilities. We have the highest concentration of millionaires in the world and there’s a lot of money here. Despite what many people believe, there’re also a lot of people with very good hearts here. But there’s a serious shortage of good ideas, which tells you, very sensibly, that if you have a good idea with a good plan, it’s not going to be too hard to find people with money and who believe in it. It’s about refining that idea, getting all your distinctions correct so people know what they’re listening to.

One of the big lessons for me has been this: Providence is crucial, and so is choice. People are usually very black and white about these things – they think that if you’re successful it’s all about either providence or choice, but I think it’s a mixture of both. I guess it’s about making sure you’re ready to make those choices when providence comes…because even when opportunities appear you may not know what to do with it. Then it’s pointless.

Also, life is not quite straightforward. For some people that may be the case – especially for the crazy type As who have their whole lives planned out. But we’re not really that way. Events will happen. You have to know what to do with those events. Or if events are not happening, what to do with your life anyway? Your life is about refinement, preparations…I always say that it’s not about what you want to do, but why and how you want to do whatever you do. If you can answer those two crucial questions, the ‘what’ sorts itself out. I think in Singapore we pay too much attention to “what do you want to do?” But, if you know the ‘why’ and the ‘how’, the ‘what’ is just so common sense. If you want to change anything or make a difference in whatever sector you’re going into, it’s important to figure out the ‘why’ question first.

When do you know when you’re ready to take that leap of faith?

I think you can never be completely ready; there are certain aspects that you should make sure you are ready, but you can never be prepared totally. What has driven us is a very long-run thinking; we keep asking ourselves: is it worthwhile doing? Even if it’s going to painful in the short term, if you can see it working out in the long run and it’s something you believe in and it makes sense…do it.

// Profiled by Chan Chi Ling

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” ― Emily Dickinson

James Chan is Principal at Neoteny Labs, an early-stage venture capital firm, and co-founder of Startup Roots Singapore, a Singaporean chapter of Sillicon Valley’s Startup Roots that facilitates and encourages the brightest local university students to work in startups.

James completed his formal education at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford University on a scholarship from the Economic Development Board of Singapore. Having previously worked at the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, James has a rare breadth and depth of experience in the startup ecosystems of both America and Singapore, and in both the public and private sectors too.

Title: Principal, Neoteny Labs; Co-founder, Startup Roots Singapore
Age: 30
Location: Singapore
Contact: www.motochan.com

You’ve had a lot of experience with startups. What is one quality you find successful entrepreneurs tend to possess?

I think you need to be scrappy. Being scrappy is about getting out of your comfort zone and do whatever it takes to get the job done. If you wanted to get an interview with someone, drop him an email. Give him a call. Wait outside his office. Do what you think it takes. Be “otaku” about it.

This applies to life at large. I love photography. When I was still a student in the U.S., I went on a cross-country roadtrip from San Francisco to Utah with a friend I made via an online photography forum. I visited Peru for 3 weeks and hiked the 26-mile Machu Picchu trail with an extra 10kg of camera equipment. It was physically punishing, but it was a great experience and I returned with priceless memories. Do crazy things. Try things you’ve never tried before. Another way I’d answer this is to be neotenous – to retain some of the qualities of a child even when you’re an adult. It’s important to keep asking, keep exploring. Stay wide-eyed. This is the essence of the name of our firm: Neoteny Labs.

A huge part of your job is about getting young Singaporeans to be involved in startups. What inspired you to be involved in the startup scene yourself?

It wasn’t any one single thing that I can attribute this to. I made the best of what Life laid in front of me. However, I had an interesting teacher who was light years ahead of her peers back then, whom I credit as my mentor who opened up my mind at the ages of 11 to 12. She had very unique teaching methods. She exposed us to stuff that were out of syllabus; philosophy, algebra, Edward de Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats”, mind-mapping, softball. She ditched the MOE syllabus in favour of a good balance between Literature (think adaptations of Broadway musicals) and a much more technical approach to the teaching of the English Language. We would visit the Singapore Science Centre monthly when typical school kids of that era visited once a year. I could go on all day, but the bottom line is she was really “otaku” about education and giving us her best. Those 2 years with her really opened up my mind’s eye. It gave me valuable perspectives at an impressionable young age; for that, I will be eternally grateful.

Singapore’s startup scene is still developing. If anything, what do you think is holding Singapore startup’s scene back? What do we need to do to really get things going even faster?

I don’t think Singapore should aim to be a second Silicon Valley; I don’t think that’s really possible. They have got a distinguished track record. Singapore’s issue right now is that we haven’t got a critical mass of successes. Once Singapore’s startup scene gets a major breakthrough or two, that will attract a lot of attention from entrepreneurs and investors.

Having said that, I think what Singapore needs to improve is our culture towards failure when it comes to long-haul innovation. The typical Singaporean is risk-averse. Consider the options available to the average professional; they can easily get high starting salaries in large prestigious companies. Our smartest and brightest face immense opportunity costs when deciding whether to join startups.

And that’s not necessarily surprising, nor is it entirely a bad thing. Our younger generation have been conditioned through repeated streamings, school rankings and parental and peer pressure. You wouldn’t want everyone in Singapore to be an entrepreneur; we need more followers than we do leaders. Most of Neoteny Labs’ investments in Singapore startups have foreign co-founders. We don’t discriminate founders by their nationality; I’ve just been harder pressed to identify more Singaporeans who are as “neotenous” as they are scrappy. I’d love to see a stronger representation by Singaporeans in the future.

I think the structural limitations I spoke of are being worked on by the Government; we’ll just have to be patient and wait for its results.

Any last words of advice to our wannabe entrepeneurs out there?

It’s very, very important to identify role models or mentors at every stage in your life. Work hard, keep your feet on the ground and be humble and gracious. Every dog has its day.