PDF - Challenge Online

Y 2012
BRUAR
E
F
/
Y
R
JANUA
ARE
YOU
How real-time data
can help you think
differently (p.14)
INNOVATING
for
Meet the
Transformers who make
good ideas work (p.5)
GOOD?
Social innovation
explained, and
THE SIGNIFICANCE
OF cross-sector
collaboration (p.8)
08
Cover STORY
THINKING OUT OF BOXES
FOR social GOOD
The challenge for social innovation is
cross-sector collaboration
FEATURES
05
Meet the transformers
Officers who have the urge to
solve problems
30
Find out what LIVE Singapore!,
an open platform of real-time data
could do for you
where to find talent
Relook and rehaul systems that are
keeping talent out, says Malcolm Gladwell
32
All Aboard the Public Engagement Train
The key is to connect and
build relationships
38like clockwork Final instalment of the Unsung Heroes
series: L Magaeish Sri from ACRA
40
reliving the past
Challenge remembers war heroes
this Total Defence Day
Inbox
Your views on the Nov/Dec
issue of Challenge
30
03 Your Say
Engaging the public overrated or necessary Readers share their views
You’ll be more joyful, says Vadivu Govind
27
Letters to a Young
Public Officer
be liked and be rewarded
Former Prisons Director Chua Chin Kiat
offers tips on becoming more likeable
28
A Cuppa With…
“Don’t forget the people”
HDB CEO Cheong Koon Hean shares
her plans for public housing
36
Perspectives
No Hell’s kitchen, this
Challenge trails two officers who are
serving up Singapore’s next batch
of hospitality professionals
NEWS FROM THE SERVICE
14
Januar y/Febr
uary 2012
MARGINALIA
is the art of jotting down your
thoughts in words or doodles
in the unmarked spaces of
your books. It’s a useful tool to
crystallise your thoughts, or a
way of personalising your book.
pages of tips to get you ahead
PAPER-FREE
Tips for e-reading.
• Get f ree e-books at Project
Gutenberg (gutenberg.org).
• Clean your e-reader with
dampened spectacle cleaning
cloths and lens cleaning solution, then dry with soft lintf ree cloth.
FAN FICTION
Love a story so much
you write your own
take? That’s fan f iction.
A Study
in Emerald
Mixing Sherlock
Holmes and The
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, this
novella by graphic novel author
Neil Gaiman (of The Sandman) is not to be missed.
19
39 level up
Where do you sit in your
‘career‘ car?
Download at: bit.ly/NeilGaimanshortstories
The Demon’s
Lexicon
Sarah Rees Brennan was wildly
popular in the
Harry Potter fandom before getting a book contract. Her first novel The Demon’s
Lexicon was long-listed for the
Carnegie Medal literary award.
DID YOU KNOW?
Interview with the Vampire
author Anne Rice has famously
banned all fan fiction based on her
works, citing copyright issues.
19-26
We love words and we want
to share the love. Here’s
a smorgasbord of literary
offerings that will help you
literarily impress the boss
and co-workers.
GENTLY DOES IT
If creased book spines give you the
heebie-jeebies, follow these tips.
1
Place the
book with
its spine on
a table.
To deal with gobbledegook:
2
3
Let the front
cover down.
The Complete Plain Words
by Sir Ernest Gowers
PU
You know who you are: the guilty ones
who butcher the English language in
vain attempts to impress the boss.
Learn to write clearly and concisely
with this book.
LLO
Then the back cover.
UT
To add intrigue to your job:
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
4
Then open a few
leaves in front.
A skilled con artist, saved from the gallows, ends up as the Postmaster of the
rundown Postal Service. Dealing with
bureaucracy isn’t the hard part, escaping an assassin is…
To impress people:
5
The Lazy Intellectual
by Richard Wallace
Then a few at the
back, alternating front
and back,
6
Gently pressing
them down until the
center is reached.
Confession: We don’t know the original source of this illustration
that we found on the Internet. If you do, drop us an email!
With 10 chapters of facts covering philosophy to math, you’ll know enough
of everything to be the most knowledgeable person in the office.
To deal with writer’s block:
The Write Brain Workbook
by Bonnie Neubauer
Chock-full of creative exercises, this
will get you off the block and writing.
Knowing this could move your career
up a notch, says Michael Podolinsky
32
lifestyle
19
44
The Challenge PullOut
WORD!
8 pages of tips to get ahead
The Irreverent Last Page
The civil servant’s prayer
36
Happy 2012! It ’s been exactly three years since I wrote my first Editor’s Note back in Jan 2009,
and once again, I find myself back in Houston, this time to visit my new nephew. Something inexplicably special happens when you behold and hold your sibling’s child – affection surges from unknown depths and suddenly, I can speak baby language on cue. Fascinating, for someone who’s not
exactly baby-crazy.
This issue, we have a solid lineup of amazing men and women who
have made a real difference because of their passion and ingenuity. Read about how our Civil Defence colleagues turned ordinary
fire-fighting engines into transformer machines that can conquer
floods and fire alike in Meet The Transformers, and find out what
drives our former master urban planner and now head of HDB,
Dr Cheong Koon Hean, in her current quest to provide homes
for the majority of us in A Cuppa With…. Chua Chin Kiat
shares his experiences behind the Yellow Ribbon project in
Letters To A Young Public Off icer. I’m particularly excited too by
the LIVE Singapore! project – using technology to generate realtime data that has the potential to move Singapore up a notch
as an urban city that can respond
to itself faster, and hopefully enable its dwellers to make better,
more earth-friendly decisions.
And we caught up with Malcolm
Gladwell when he was in
town – don’t let anybody tell
you, you’re not good enough,
or smart enough – you just
might have that “with-itness” that ’s all it takes to get
the job done right.
Don’t let
anybody tell
you, you’re not
good enough, or
smart enough
We hope you’ll be inspired by all these stories, ‘cos we are.
So, stay inspired, stay creative, keep giving back! Have an
adventurous, unconventional and immensely fulfilling 2012!
With love from all of us at Challenge.
A tongue-in-cheek poem written
in 1960 is still relevant today
44
44
STAY INSPIRED, STAY CREATIVE, KEEP GIVING BACK
And like Jan 2009, as with every year, this issue of Challenge returns once again to our roots – innovation – but this time from the social perspective. We’ve often talked about being inventive but what
exactly is social innovation? Our cover story explores more, and finds out why there is vast untapped
potential in the space between governments, businesses and non-profits, and how sparks can fly when all
three collaborate to find solutions. To me, social innovation is about putting our creativity into meeting social needs – and, if you ask me, that ’s the essence of what we do as a
Public Service.
18 Thinking Aloud
Look at what’s working,
instead of what’s not
ON THE JOB
HIGHLIGHTS
04
02
14real-time, real-data
= Real good policies?
VIEWPOINTS
Research and writing by Abigail Kang Edited by Bridgette See Designed and illustrated by Yip Siew Fei & Ng Shiwei ©Challenge Magazine
08
Your Say03
2011
EMBER
ER/DEC
NOVEMB
INBOX
INBOX
EA B
LIV
Publisher
PS21 Office, Public Service Division,
Prime Minister’s Office
100 High Street, #07-01 The Treasury
Singapore 179434
Email: [email protected]
Web : www.challenge.gov.sg
For enquiries or feedback on Challenge,
please write to the Challenge Editorial Team
at [email protected].
Editorial Advisor
Agnes Kwek
Editor
Tay Li Shing
LE CIT
Y
the
I always look forward to reading
Challenge, the articles are
Keep up the good work.
MinLaw
Assistant Editors
Editorial Assistant
Eric Loy
Tuber Productions Pte Ltd
298 River Valley Road Level 2
Singapore 238339
Tel : 6836-4030
Fax : 6836-4029
Email: [email protected]
Web : www.tuberproductions.com
Management
Director
Lee Han Shih
Managing Director
Weiling Wong
Project Director
Liew Wei Ping
Editorial
Contributing Editor
Bridgette See
Editorial Consultant
Koh Buck Song
Staff Writer
Chen Jingting
Interns
Abigail Kang, Nazurah Sa’ad &
Nur’Ain Zainuddin
Contributors
Richard Hartung, Hong Xinyi, Ryandall Lim
& Siti Maziah Masramli
Creative
Creative Director
The 8 pages of tips to
get smarter in life are
interesting!
It may keep the participants
I enjoy the packaging and
stories in Challenge.
Eugene Leong
MND
occupied during their meal time
when attending courses in CSC.
Cool to have Challenge
magazine available
at CSC!
Alicia Lai
CSC
Pretty fresh!
Right up there with the ‘it’ mags!
Keep churning out the fun stuff!
Tan Wearn Haw
We asked readers for their views.
W hat will it take f or us to
mar r y Singapor e?
PLUS Do your part to save the Earth: Eat insects | Why saying ‘Sorr y’ is so tough
Shaun Khiu & Christopher Teo
Public
Overrated or Necessary
well-crafted and the layout
is simply food for the eyes!
Joanna Hor
Engaging
I loved the piece on the
lovable city, and it’s very
relevant to the work
of the civil service.
Maybe you guys could introduce a
recurring section that gives readers a
few simple tips on how to reduce our
carbon footprint (like stop eating meat ).
Kassandra Lee
MinLaw
Yes, it is of utmost importance to understand the
perspectives and concerns of the very people whom we
are making policies and services for. We could establish
rapport with the public, discuss issues through the
engagement process. This would allow both the public
and Public Service to better understand the micro
and macro situations from various perspectives. If the
public is engaged during policy and service design,
we could develop more holistic and timely policies
while securing buy-in at the same time. Singapore
is the joint responsibility of all Singaporeans, not
just the Public Service. Therefore, everyone should
contribute positive and helpful suggestions to building
our home. Having said these,
the process of policies and
services design might be
more tedious and a longer
time required.
Congratulations Wen
Hwee! Thank you for
sharing your heartfelt
views with us. We’ve
got a festive hamper
worth $100 that’s on
the way to you!
Liew Wen Hwee
NEA
CEO, Singapore Sailing Federation
Ashik
Art Director
Yip Siew Fei
Graphic Designers
Cindy Anggono & Ng Shi Wei
Production Manager
Nurul Malik
Staff Photog rapher
Farhan Darma
Cont ributing Photog raphers
John Heng (www.daphotographer.com)
Norman Ng (www.normanng.com)
Challenge is published bimonthly by
Tuber Productions Pte Ltd (Registration No:
200703697K) for PS21 Office, Public Service
Division, Prime Minister’s Office. Copyright
of the materials contained in this magazine
belongs to PS21 Office. Nothing in here shall
be reproduced in whole or in part without prior
written consent of PS21 Office. Views expressed
in this magazine are not necessarily those of
PS21 Office or Tuber Productions Pte Ltd and
no liabilities shall be attached there to.
All rights reserved.
All information correct at time of printing.
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(Registration No: 197801823M)
57 Loyang Drive Singapore 508968
If you were to live 2012 like your last year,
what would be the TOP FIVE things you’d do?
Tell us what you think!
Email us: [email protected]
$100!
$30
The best entry will win an attractive prize worth up to
All other
each. Please include
published entries will win shopping vouchers worth
your name, agency email address, agency and contact number.
All entries should reach us by January 27, 2012.
Engaging the public is
at the heart of the Public
Ser vice. Remove this
function and the entire
spirit of the Public Service
crumbles. The interaction
and proximit y with the
public (whilst not always
smooth-sailing) makes your
work real and gives it true
social value. We should
move away from asking
questions like “should we
listen/engage?” to “ how
should we listen/engage?”.
It may not be necessary
to have public consultation
for all types of policies.
Perhaps we should define
what should go for public
consultation. However, a
faster and effective way is
really for a public servant
to empathise and think
like a citizen or user when
developing a policy or
service. We could gather
feedback from our staff
first as they represent the
public as well.
Dawn Lum
Chong Lai Fun
IPOS
ACRA
Editor ’s Note: Our officers had a lot to say
about this issue as we received 78 long and
well-thought-out replies. Many feel that public
engagement can be tough, but is necessary. In
fact, Gayle Goh wrote a 1,000-word letter that
we think would be a shame to summarise, so
we’re publishing her letter in full at Challenge
Online (www.challenge.gov.sg.) Do log on for
more exclusive online content too.
Five and a half years ago I published
an article on my personal blog. The
article took issue with remarks made
by then-2PS (MFA) Mr. Bilahari
Kausikan... The content of my opinions
isn’t the issue here... what sticks out at
me is not the fact that I wrote about a
senior civil servant. It is the fact that
he wrote back... I was 17 years old,
and I had been engaged...
!?
...?
Gayle Goh
NEA
Treating public consultation as an SOP won’t work.
Who would understand consultation papers written in
government language posted on websites? If we treat
this seriously, we would get down to the target audience’s
level and devise engagement exercises they can relate to.
Cynthia Lee Poh Lian
MCYS
Honestly, I feel it isn’t necessary to
involve public in getting feedback on
policies. As the management would
have already done some collation of
statistics before implementing the
policies, it will be a further waste of
precious time and resources in getting
public responses. Getting public
response doesn’t necessarily equate
to more effective policies.
...?
June Zhou
CPFB
The end result defines the action that has to be taken
and the amount of effort placed to improve or introduce
a policy. Is the policy for the public? Then it makes sense
that the public be involved. Ultimately it’s the people
affected by the policy who are always in the best position
to give the unseen perspective. To develop an effective
policy, the dollars need to be spent in the form of time
and resources. There are no short cuts to any good policy,
failing which, it becomes a futile exercise.
V. Alagesan
Legal Aid Bureau
04 Highlights
Feature05
NEWS
Coming up...
from the
SERVICE
TINTIN
STAMPS ON
DISPLAY
The Adventures Of
T intin exhibition
opened at the
Singapore Philatelic
M u s e u m o n
November 5, 2011. It
celebrates the works
of Hergé (Tintin’s
creator), explores
the influences
in his work and
career, and traces
50th Anniversary of Tintin, Belgium, 1979. Stamp image reproduced
the development
with permission from Singapore Philatelic Museum on behalf of bpost
of characters in the
(Belgium Post), Singapore Philatelic Museum Collection
comic series. The
exhibition features
the full range of Tintin postage stamps issued by Belgium, France and the
Netherlands, from the permanent collection of the Singapore Philatelic Museum.
On display for the first time here are rarely-seen original stamp artworks, colour
trials and other philatelic materials from the Museum Voor Communicatie in
the Netherlands and L’Adresse Musée de La Poste in France. Exhibition ends
May 31, 2012.
www.spm.org.sg
Brought to you
by the Strategic
Finance
Transformation
Office, MOF
SHARPEN YOUR BUDGET
MARKSMANSHIP
It’s that time of the year again when there
are reminders to spend 95 per cent of
your budget. The Ministry of Finance
(MOF) asks ministries to achieve this
utilisation rate to encourage good budget marksmanship. Still confused? Too
much jargon? Simply put, we should ask
for what we can realistically spend in a
financial year. The $500,000 here or $1m
there that is unused could have been allocated for another important project like a new
road, school or park connector. So, we should
try to budget accurately and spend prudently. If it
looks unlikely that the budget will be used, inform
the Finance department early so that the budget can
be re-deployed, rather than spend it for the sake of
hitting 95 per cent. After all, we are taxpayers too
and expect that our tax dollars go to good use! To
learn more, join us on Cube.
www.cube.gov.sg
ART GETS CENTRESTAGE
Catch Art Stage Singapore 2012 from January 1215 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention
Center. With a strong focus on high quality
Asian art, the event will showcase the best in
Asian creativity along with celebrated pieces
from global art superstars. The Project Stage
will showcase works from emerging regional
artists, ranging from performance to sculpture.
www.artstagesingapore.com
AIRSHOW 2012 FLIES INTO TOWN
Asia’s largest aerospace and defence show, the
biennial Singapore Airshow is back from February
14-19 at the Changi Exhibition Centre. Highlights
include the Land Defence Pavilion, Unmanned
Systems Showcase, the Green Pavilion and two
high-level strategic conferences. An exciting
lineup of aerobatic displays will thrill visitors
daily. www.singaporeairshow.com
SHARE THE LOVE
Chingay Parade 2012 (Feb 3 and 4) promises
to thrill and bedazzle with its theme of “Love,
Care, Kindness Ever ywhere” as the parade
marks its 40th anniversary. Usher in the year
of the Dragon with local and international
dragon per formances, multicultural shows
featuring Indian, Malay and Chinese dances,
as well as international performers from China,
Egypt, Japan and Taiwan. Tickets from SISTIC.
www.chingay.org.sg
meet the
transformers
They see problems and they have an inexorable urge to solve them – creatively. Each year, the
Public Service gives kudos to off icers who transform their good ideas into great action, at the annual
ExCEL Convention. We meet two teams that won Gold Awards for Best PS21 Projects.
Te xt by
Nazurah Sa’ad
Photos of SCDF by
John Heng
Feature07
Multi-taskers
to the Rescue
It was at a monthly operations meeting in February 2010 when
four Civil Defence officers from different divisions shared the problems
they had encountered on the ground.
They wanted to enhance SCDF’s water
rescue capacity during flood rescues and
show how fire-fighters could tap large
amounts of water to put out large-scale
vegetation fires and industrial blazes.
The four men (below) knew a solution
was needed, but there was no luxury
of money to build specialised vehicles
for each problem. They had to find
creative ways to deal with floods, vegetation fires or warehouse blazes with
limited resources.
Team leader LTC Tan encouraged
everyone to “look beyond typical fire
engines… and instead take a look
outside and watch movies to get ideas”.
They did just that. Inspired by the
movie Transformers, they spent a month
toying with the idea of “transforming” vehicles before agreeing on what
they wanted.
The result: the Multi-Utility Vehicle or
MUV, a four-wheel drive truck with
a crane and hydraulic tailgate that
can load up and switch between three
operational modules onto its chassis.
The Flood Response Module has an
amphibious vehicle, water rescue items
and two boats that can carry up to
six persons each. The Water Supply
Module has hoses that can lay up to
four kilometres, while floating pumps
allow it to tap open sources like the
sea, river or reservoirs. The Vegetation Fire Module has two water tanks
with 3,000-litre capacity each and two
pumps that can generate water jets to
extinguish deep-seated vegetation fires.
But while the team fretted over various
aspects of the project like the health of
the saplings or pull of the tides, they
worried less about failure.
“People are so afraid of failure. There is
so much fear, so they go for the easy
conventional methods,” said Dr Chan.
By rejecting convention, the team knew
they had to invest more time on trials and take on more risks. This was
encouraged by a culture of “flexibility
and forgiveness”.
It was not easy coming up with the
MUV as “one of the challenges was
to convince the senior management
to approve this idea” shared LTC
Tan. The bosses had to be convinced
that “the MUV need not be as fast as
the fire engine” as it takes time to
change between modules. With limited
budget for specialised vehicles, the
MUV was their best bet.
The team also had to think about how
operations would be carried out. Who
should operate the MUVs? And where
should they be based?
But the key lesson for LTC Tan was
learning how to back up good ideas.
“Many officers don’t dare to go beyond
their boundaries. I strongly believe that
if you want to do certain things like
selling your idea to senior management, you need to be bold enough to
put that idea out front and not do it
blindly, but to really gather a lot of
facts, research and feedback,” he said.
By being creative and tenacious,
the team was able to push their best
ideas forward and transform their vision into reality.
Fighting fire smartly: The team that dreamed up the Multi-Utility Vehicle. From left: LTA Leonard Lee,
MAJ Chew Keng Tok, LTC Alvin Tan and MAJ Khaizal Khalid.
Taking root: There are already
positive signs that the mangrove
rehabilitation is working well,
with natural propagation of
mangrove plants amid the rock
revertment. Photo from National
Biodiversity Centre
Mangrove
Rescuers
Pulau Tekong is home to
the largest patch of mangrove in Singapore. It is also where many rare species
of flora and fauna – absent in mangrove
on the mainland – are found.
But in 2006, the National Parks Board
(NParks) found that heavy boat traffic
and strong waves were toppling mangrove trees along the island’s northeastern coast. The 92 hectares of pristine
mangrove were being rapidly eroded at
one hectare a year.
This prompted NParks to set up a
multi-agency team (inc luding the
Housing and Development Board and
the Ministry of Defence, among others) to rescue the mangrove. From the
outset, hard engineering methods such
as building seawalls that merely deflect
the waves elsewhere were a no-no.
“It would’ve made a mockery of our
duty if we did something that’s environmentally damaging, therefore [the]
key thing that we stuck to was that
[the solution] must be environmentally
sustainable and it must minimise the
impact to the environment,” said team
leader Dr Lena Chan, Deputy Director
of the National Biodiversity Centre
(NBC) which comes under NParks.
Initially, the team thought they could
backfill the eroded shoreline with mud
and plant mangroves on top. They took
a scientific approach and experimented
before calling for a tender. But the trial
that consisted of planting mangrove in
biodegradable bags on mud failed.
“The consultants were very nervous,”
recounted Ms Yang Shufen, Head of
Park Planning at the NBC.
“There was an email saying
‘Oh my goodness, the bags
spilled’. They sent us photos
of mud spilling out from the
bags.” The periodic strong
winds in the area had ripped
the plants apart, forcing the
team to rethink their approach.
Ms Yang recalled how a local company
that produces biodegradable planter
bags was tasked to make bags that
would degrade in four months so the
mangrove saplings’ growth would not
be inhibited. This led to the invention
of bags that degraded according to
clients’ specifications. Such innovations,
she pointed out, have the potential to
be marketed locally and globally.
“It’s the willingness to speak up and go
back to my bosses and say ‘it failed’,” said
Ms Yang. “You must be comfortable to
feel that if your little experiment failed,
you won’t be ‘killed’. If a trial fails, it’s
a good thing because you will learn.”
After nearly a year, there are positive
signs, such as the natural propagation of
mangrove plants amidst the revertment.
But the team says it is too soon to call
it a success as a much longer period of
monitoring is required. But if successful,
this innovative Singaporean method of
rescuing mangroves could well become
the gold standard globally.
The
team
openly admits
that their plans
were never
set in stone.
“When building with nature,
it is dynamic.
Yo u h a v e t o
do some small
exper imentation on a pilot plot, refine it, and then
do it again and so on,” said Mr Lim
Liang Jim, Assistant Director (Coastal
and Marine Environment) at NBC.
It would’ve made
a mockery of our
duty if we did
something that’s
environmentally
damaging.
In the end, they decided to
combine soft and hard engineering by building a rock revertment
and growing mangrove in between
the gaps. Biodegradable planter rings
would protect the saplings till they
were stronger while bakau poles were
placed in front of the revertment to
deflect strong waves.
The ambitious rehabilitation plan was
a first in the world. No one had any
prior experience so everyone, including contractors and consultants, had
to innovate and adjust plans as they
learnt more about the environment
they operated in.
So, before starting on the official
1.9km shoreline rehabilitation, the
understandably nervous consultants
suggested trying out a 50m pilot site
first. It was half successful – with some
plants dying. The team quickly studied
the mangrove species that thrived (they
planted 14 types) and tweaked their
plans quickly to boost survival rates.
They were learning at every turn.
Saving mangroves
creatively: The
National Biodiversity
Centre team that led
the multi-agency
mangrove rescue
mission. From top:
Dr Lena Chan, Yang
Shufen, Linda Goh
and Lim Jiang Jim.
Cover Story09
thinking
for
Singapore hasn’t just been busy attracting business
entrepreneurs, but is also gaining a reputation as an attractive
place to incubate social innovation. Now, the challenge is
to get social innovators from the public, private and people
sectors to break out of their silos – or boxes – to collaborate.
Te xt by Richard Hartung
I llust rations by Ng Shi Wei
Cover Story11
Social innovation can be in...
In
many
c o u n t r i e s,
intractable problems like high unemployment, income inequality, lowquality education and homelessness
clearly require urgent attention. In
Singapore, while social problems have
not escalated to such critical levels,
issues ranging from education and
public transport to healthcare and housing are vital concerns too. At home
and abroad, social innovation is gaining
prominence as a means to devise new
solutions for crucial social issues.
What is social innovation
The Center for Social Innovation at
Stanford University describes social
innovation as “the process of inventing, securing support for, and
implementing novel
solutions to social
needs and problems”.
James Phills
and his coauthors add
in the Stanford Social
Innovation
Review that
the solut i on s h o u l d
b e “m o re e f fective, efficient,
sustainable, or just
(equitable) than existing solutions.”
Who drives social innovation is changing, and there is far more collaboration
than before. “In the past, governments
were often pioneers of social innovation,” UK-based NESTA CEO Geoff
Mulgan and his two co-authors wrote
in the Open Book of Social Innovation.
“The great municipal reforms of the
19th century created a new social infrastructure, as did the welfare reforms
of the late 19th and 20th centuries.”
Now, governments are working with
both businesses and non-profits to
develop solutions. As the Center for
Social Innovation in Canada said on
its website, social innovation “can take
place in the for-profit, non-profit and
GUIDING LIGHT
FOR STUDENTS
public sectors. Increasingly, they are
happening in the spaces between these
three sectors as perspectives collide to
spark new ways of thinking.”
Entrepreneurship and innovation
– not quite the same thing
While social innovation and social
entrepreneurship are often talked about
as the same thing, they are actually
different. It is important to make a
distinction, as entrepreneurship
can happen without innovation. As
business guru Peter Drucker said, an
entrepreneur “always searches for
change, responds to it and exploits it
as an opportunity.”
While innovation may drive
some of those opportunities, entrepreneurs can
achieve business or
social goals by
setting up businesses like
re s t a u r a n t s
or schools
without being truly
innovative.
Social innov a t i on go e s
beyond entrepreneurship
t o c re a t e t r u l y
novel solutions to
social problems.
As Singapore’s Social Enterprise
Association executive director Teo Mee
Hong said about social innovation here,
“we seem to have been pragmatic” more
than innovative in setting up social
enterprises, so social entrepreneurs may
have focused more on goals like creating
jobs or helping the marginalised than
on innovation.
The rise of social innovation
The Open Book authors say the main
reason social innovation is taking off
is that “existing structures and policies have found it impossible to crack
some of the most pressing issues of
our times – such as climate change, the
worldwide epidemic of chronic disease,
and widening inequality.”
THE
POWER
OF THREE
Health
When the powers
combine: The capacity
to collaborate will be
the key differentiator
around the world.
Education
Housing
Transport
Welfare
As a result, there has been a “flowering
of social innovation” – of varying levels
of response from the public, private and
people sectors to bring change in more
innovative ways.
So while governments came up with
ideas on their own in the past, there are
increasingly good ideas emerging from
the non-profit and business sectors. If
the public sector were to take on these
good ideas and implement them on
a government-wide scale, the impact
would be far greater than a non-profit
or company alone.
Also, according to The Economist, more
countries are embracing social innovation because they believe it will “do
more than save a few dollars” and can
“transform the way public services are
provided, by tapping the ingenuity of
people in the private sector, especially
social entrepreneurs.”
This does not mean that social innovation works for every issue. Mr
Mulgan told Challenge that while social
innovation can be used “across a very
wide range of fields – health, education,
welfare, even transport – where the
barriers to entry aren’t that high and
where there’s a lot of expertise outside
government,” social innovation tends to
exclude territory with large capital costs
like defence or big infrastructure or the
“ones very close to national security.”
Social innovation
While Singapore seems to be doing
relatively well in terms of economic
growth, this doesn’t mean there is no
room for social innovation. The reality
is that critical issues remain. Passionate
discussions about how best to teach
students, provide healthcare for the
increasingly ageing population, resolve
a growing income gap and enhance
transportation point to the need for
greater social innovation.
For example, instead of simply cutting
through the Bukit Brown Cemetery to
build a road to ease traffic congestion,
could more innovative solutions have
emerged from crowdsourcing ideas from
the people and private sectors?
In the early days of nation-building,
the government was often the driver
for social innovation. Groundbreaking
concepts like the Central Provident
Fund, Housing and Development Board
estates and Electronic Road Pricing
were designed to solve the critical social
issues of the day.
While social innovation may not be as
large-scale today, it is still happening
all around Singapore. The brains behind
Marina Barrage, for example, turned
part of the seawater port area into a
freshwater reservoir and recreation site.
(See sidebar for examples)
However, in contrast to some countries
where government, businesses and nonprofits are collaborating far more than
before, different sectors here often seem
to come up with solutions on their own
to solve focused problems rather than
leveraging tri-sector collaboration for
social innovation.
In education, for example, the Lien
C e n t re f o r S o c i a l I n n o v a t i o n a t
Singapore Management University
(SMU) was set up to “inspire ideas
and innovations, foster new alliances
and facilitate solutions to strengthen
the non-profit sector” to help resolve
unmet social needs.” Other tertiary
Northlight School was set up
in 2007 to help students who
failed the Primary School Leaving
Exam twice by giving them
vocational training. The goal is
for Northlight “to help students
stay in the education system and
equip them with the necessary
skills and values for work life”
in a three-year programme that
has character, foundation and
vocational education at the core
of its curriculum.” In a recent book
on how citizens and government
can work together to create public
value, University of Waterloo
professor Jocelyne Bourgon cited
Northlight School as a superb
example of “an innovation that
involves government, education
professionals, students, families
and communities working together
to address a pressing social need.”
It has been so successful, says
Dr Bourgon, that “its innovative
strategies and non-conformist
approaches have been copied in
primary schools throughout the
country and internationally.”
AN OASIS IN THE
RED TAPE DESERT
In giving the 2005 UN Public
Service Award to the Ministry
of Trade and Industry (MTI) for
the Online Application System
for Integrated Services (OASIS),
the United Nations said that in
the past “the process of visiting
various agencies and filling in
forms was not only cumbersome
and time-consuming but also the
incumbents faced red tape of
bureaucracy.” Agencies operated
in silos and systems were
incompatible. OASIS was initiated
to “create a common platform to
establish greater collaboration
among agencies for the application
of business licences, as well as a
customer-centric portal of choice
for users to interact and transact
with the Government to acquire
licences.” Thirty agencies, including
MTI and the Ministry of Finance,
collaborated to analyse and reengineer the processes for licences
and permits. Initial results of
one OASIS component alone, the
Online Business Licensing Service,
which have likely grown far better,
showed that processing times for
licences dropped more than 16 per
cent to 12.5 days and businesses
saved nearly $2m per year.
Cover Story13
SOCIAL
INNOVATION
in SINGAPORE
C
P
F
HDB
institutions, including Singapore Polytechnic and Ngee Ann Polytechnic, now
have social innovation programmes for
their students.
The non-profit sector is separately
working to solve social issues. Along
with non-profits that develop solutions,
organisations like Social Innovation
Park have been set up to incubate social
entrepreneurs and innovators.
In the private sector, hundreds of
small social enterprises, encouraged
by organisations like the Social Enterprise Association or SE Hub and
often with government funding, are
seeking to achieve social goals while
making a profit.
While government and non-profits or
businesses do work together in some
areas, there does not yet seem to be a
fundamental trend towards tri-sector
collaboration for social innovation.
Impetus for collaboration is, however,
growing.
In October 2010, the government
launched the $450m Public Private
Co-Innovation Partnership (CI Partnership) to encourage co-development
of innovative solutions with the private
sector to meet Singapore’s longer-term
needs. The CI Partnership is based on
the principle that the government can
better serve the public by collaborating
with, and tapping, private businesses to
create innovative solutions.
Cross-collaboration is key
Embracing the reality of working with
players from other sectors isn’t always
easy for public officers long accustomed
to being the primary source of solutions.
Governments are facing “a key challenge
to find out what it means to collaborate,”
said Christian Bason, director of Mindlab, a user-centred social innovation lab
run jointly by the Danish ministries of
Business, Taxation, and Employment.
At the Social Innovation Conference
(Social iCon) at SMU in November
last year, experts from around the world
shared insights on why new models of
social innovation are needed and how
creative cross-collaboration can lead
to better solutions for social problems.
Their experiences provide valuable
ideas for further strengthening social
innovation in Singapore.
departmental levels can lead to broader
changes across the entire public sector.
One is what Mr Bason called a “fundamental shift in the relationship between
citizens and the state” towards focusing
on the majority of citizens who follow
the rules rather than the small number
who try to cheat. As one example that
seems radical yet commonsensical, the
tax department in Denmark observed
that 97 per cent of people want to pay
taxes on time and asked, “Why do we
treat them like the 3 per cent? Why do
we focus on compliance and control?”
In an age of scarce resources, Mr
Mulgan said, governments have been
“pumping more money in and not getting more out.” Solving problems, he
said, requires escaping from “the silos
we’re locked in.” As a result, “we’re
discovering what lies beyond expecting
government to find the answers.”
Businesses have indeed started to
become active in social innovation in
many countries, especially since they
have increasingly found that issues
like under-educated workers and poor
employee health have a direct impact on
the bottomline. Social impact consulting firm FSG’s China-based managing
director Lalitha Vaiyanathan said: “The
norm is going to be more companies
looking at the core of their assets to
solve fundamental social issues.”
Non-profits are also working with
government and, as former director
of the White House Office of Social
Innovation Sonal Shah said, they are
“beginning to change their roles” from
simply pointing out weaknesses in
government policy to becoming part
of the solution.
The new paradigm in places such as the
US and the UK, then, is that government and businesses and non-profits all
work together rather than separately to
devise solutions to social issues.
“It’s the capacity to collaborate that
will be the key differentiator around
the world,” said Mr Mulgan. And in
this new model the government has a
different role, said Ms Shah, to act “as a
catalyst and not a provider of services”.
In Singapore, too, collaboration for
social innovation, instead of working in
silos, could result in better outcomes.
Successful strategies
Since it is not always easy for public officers to shift to a new paradigm, learning from experiences in other countries
After further analysis, the Danish government moved towards helping people
pay taxes more easily. While penalties
are still in place for the recalcitrant 3
per cent, helping the majority increased
efficiency by 35 per cent and created
far greater customer satisfaction.
Some government agencies have also
created competitions to identify optimal
solutions. When the US space agency
NASA wanted new moon gloves, Ms
Shah said, it announced a design contest and received hundreds of ideas for
NASA engineers to evaluate.
can be a boon. Governments will have
to shift their strategies from “output to
outcome”, said Ms Shah, “start thinking
about the impact” and assess whether
they have actually achieved the outcome
rather than whether they have checked
all the right boxes. (Or in Singapore’s
jargon, “delivered the KPIs”.)
of the largest purchasers of goods, it
can leverage procurement and select
suppliers who will be more innovative
or help solve problems. Since the government “is a market maker in what it
chooses to buy”, it can influence businesses to come up with novel solutions
to public sector requirements.
Mr Mulgan said it is also important
for top leaders to show the way, since
success “comes from leadership and
how leaders embrace innovation.” One
example, he said, is New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg. “When people try
something innovative and it fails, he
takes them out for dinner. That sends
a signal right there that it’s okay to
take risks.”
When a programme succeeds, Ms Shah
said, public officers can publicise it
to show how social innovation solves
real-life problems. The US Veterans
Administration started with a small
suggestion programme and then publicised it broadly as subsequent iterations
brought in thousands of suggestions
and drove fundamental changes in the
organisation.
At an operational level, procurement
can also drive change. Ms Shah noted
that since the public sector is one
Programmes to Drive Change
The Social iCon speakers also provided
examples of how new practices at all
Similarly, Mr Mulgan told Challenge
that departments in the UK have said,
“We will give X amount of money to
anyone who can come up with a solution for, say, saving 10 million hours of
commuter time each week, or reducing
hospital readmissions.” Mr Mulgan’s
recent book, The Art Of Public Strategy,
provides additional examples.
While social innovation has been around
for a long time, the new paradigm of
collaboration between government and
non-profits and businesses is creating
new solutions and greater success.
Even though working jointly may create
some discomfort among individuals in
each sector who had for so long settled
into comfortable roles on their own,
collaborative social innovation can lead
to far greater success.
Feature15
Real-time, real-data =
Real Good
Policies?
LIVE Singapore!, an open platform that harnesses the
power of real-time data, has the potential to help the
Public Service respond quicker and better to the public.
Te xt by
Chen Jingting
Photos by
Norman Ng
I n fast - changing S ingapore , keeping
abreast of all that’s happening in order to develop effective and
responsive policies can be tough. This is where LIVE Singapore!
– an open platform that integrates, analyses and visualises realtime data – could come in useful for public officers.
LIVE Singapore! is a Future Urban Mobility research initiative
by the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology
or SMART, a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Singapore’s National Research
Foundation (NRF).
A five-year project, LIVE Singapore! is funded by the NRF,
which spearheads Singapore’s research and development agenda.
Prompt Interventions:
LIVE Singapore!’s project leader
Kristian Kloeckl believes that
real-time data can help officers
to respond faster and better to
situations on the ground.
Project leader Kristian Kloeckl, an Austrian trained in industrial
design, is from the Senseable City Laboratory, a research centre
at MIT that studies new ways to understand urban dynamics
and design tools for cities based on pervasive digital technologies
and real-time data. He has been visiting Singapore regularly to
work with a team of MIT staff, and foreign and local graduate
students since 2010.
Feature17
The projection of rainfall and taxi
movements was one of six visualisations displayed in an exhibition at
the Singapore Art Museum last year.
There are ongoing discussions to display
them on the streets or through mobile
applications, says research engineer
Oliver Senn (right most in picture), the
mastermind behind LIVE Singapore!’s
platform technology.
Dr Kloeckl points out that LIVE Singapore! could lead to a breakthrough
in urban management and planning
because “it was not possible technically,
until recently, to have information that
reflects urban conditions in real-time”
and to “actually use, process and distribute real-time data for applications”
in these areas.
“Right now, urban management and
planning is done mostly on historical
data. Routes of public transport, for
example, are sketched out based on
survey results [gathered] years ago.
Wouldn’t it be great to plan [them]
based on actual user demand right
now?” asks Dr Kloeckl.
An island-city with clear
geographical boundaries
and a tech-savvy population, Singapore is an ideal
place to develop a realtime data project, adds Mr
Senn, a Swiss engineer.
Infrastructure such as the
EZ-Link card tapping system, which makes it easy to
track routes and distances
travelled by individuals,
also means Singapore is a
rich source of interesting
real-time data.
He believes that public transport policy-makers can make better-informed
decisions if they were more aware of
passenger demand throughout the day,
and especially during major events,
when large crowds have to be managed.
Public officers can also act faster in
emergencies, such as floods, when they
have real-time data of areas in danger
of flooding. Or, in cases of air or water
pollution, they are able to detect the
causes immediately and come up with
effective counter-measures.
A greater cause
Gearing up
Government agencies certainly seem
ready for some real-time action. The
Land Transport Authority and National
Environment Agency (NEA) have
provided maps and urban data to the
LIVE Singapore! project.
“The purpose of our research project
is to interact with these institutions,
allow cross-fertilisation of ideas, and
share research results, some of which
can be taken into the real world,” says
Dr Kloeckl.
He shares that the team has been having
“a lot of interaction and conversations”
with the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), which is intent on coming up with smart city urban solutions.
Dr Kloeckl has also met representatives
from the Singapore Geospatial Col-
Making sense of data:
Staff from the Senseable City Laboratory, a
research centre at MIT.
LIVE
Singapore!
visualisations
laborative Environment (SG-SPACE),
an initiative by the Singapore Land
Authority to give the public easy access
to useful geospatial information.
Though SG-SPACE and LIVE Singapore! function differently – the former
uses historical government data while
the latter uses real-time data from the
private and public sectors – Dr Kloeckl
believes there is room for future collaboration.
Access granted
Besides engaging public officers, LIVE
Singapore! encourages crowd-sourcing
of ideas: private developers will be
welcome to write programmes and applications using its technology.
“Real-time data has always been available but it ’s not made accessible to
people. So LIVE Singapore! is like an
ecosystem which incorporates multiple
streams of real-time data that people
can transform into meaningful information and that can be visualised,” says
Dr Kloeckl.
But in this data-rich world, could
too much be a bad thing? Not really,
counters Dr Kloeckl, as that information will be filtered based on location
and time relevant to people.
For instance, data on taxi movements
and rainfall, provided by Comfort
Delgro and NEA respectively, are
combined to create a multi-dimensional
projection showing the supply and
demand of taxis at different parts of
Singapore when it rains. So whether
you are someone desperate to get a cab,
or a taxi-driver looking for passengers,
the visualisation will inform you of
high-demand spots.
The LIVE Singapore! team hopes that
it can inspire behavioural changes with
their real-time visualisations. They
believe that by showing how people’s
actions can affect the environment, and
by providing easy access to real-time
data, every city-dweller
would be empowered to
make better, more earthfriendly decisions when
using the city.
emissions, when they only occupy two
per cent of the world’s surface. Hence,
“we have to find a different way (of
doing things)”.
Though it is still debatable how much
information is needed to influence
If you don’t know where
you’re consuming a lot of
energy or causing a lot of
emissions, it’s going to be
hard for you to change.
For instance, “in some
cities, more than 50 per
cent of traffic in urban
centres is due to people
looking for parking spots.
It is a stupid way of generating emissions, consuming energy,
occupying space and wasting time.
That’s the result of one driver not having
access to real-time information where a
free parking spot is,” says Dr Kloeckl,
who, in his five years at the Sensesable
City Laboratory, has worked with urban
planners in Seattle, Rome and New
York City to develop sustainable cities.
To him, there is “something not right”
about cities consuming 75 per cent of
the world’s energy and producing 80
per cent of man-made carbon dioxide
Isochronic Singapore
Know at a glance how
long you would take
to travel to different
destinations with this
map that expands and
contracts in proportion to
travelling time.
Formula One City
Check out the text
messaging activity,
indicated by the size
and colour of the glows,
during the Formula
One Grand Prix, one of
the biggest events in
Singapore. This shows how
Singaporeans respond to
the hype and even how
businesses and the public
are affected by the event.
Hub of the World
Witness the incessant
flows of goods and
people passing through
Singapore’s transshipment
container port and airport.
behaviour, access to data is essential
to power change.
Senseable City Lab’s
winning project on
trash tracking:
Dr Kloeckl explains: “If you don’t know
where you’re consuming a lot of energy
or causing a lot of emissions, it’s going
to be hard for you to change. But once
you know (the effects of your behaviour) and that there is a different way
of doing things, it is possible for you
to do that.”
TrashTrack
Location-aware tags are
attached to rubbish to
track their journey in the
waste management system
of Seattle and New York
City. The findings are then
mapped and projected in
real-time visualisations.
The project won the
US National Science
Foundation’s Visualisation
Challenge in 2010.
For more visualisations: http://senseable.mit.edu/
livesingapore
18 Thinking Aloud
Letters to aYoung Public Officer 27
Be
This can help you think better,
improve relationships and experience
more joy, says happiness consultant
Vadivu Govind.
liked
Look at what’s
and be
working,
Rewarded
instead of what’s not
Recall a time when you
were at your best and felt joyful. Feel
what you felt then. Let your heart
answer: “ What are you grateful for
in what happened? What did you appreciate about yourself ? What impact
did you have on others?”
Chances are that if you did this, your
heart would now be beating more
harmoniously; more blood would be
flowing to your brain. That means you’d
be able to focus better and think more
clearly and creatively – all these substantiated by scientific studies, no less!
Imagine that on a longer-term basis,
as you develop and deepen a practice
of focusing on what’s working in life.
Then why do we have a tendency to
focus on what’s wrong instead of what’s
right? Part of the answer lies in “negativity bias”, an evolutionary tendency
for us to focus on what could harm
us. It’s a survival strategy. However,
we tend to over-use this even when
there’s no danger. Such fear keeps us
from greater joy.
One way to focus on what’s working
is by focusing on people’s strengths. A
2002 survey by the US-headquartered
Corporate Leadership Council of some
20,000 employees across 29 countries
found that focusing on performance
strengths boosted performance by 36
per cent while focusing on performance
weaknesses led to a 27 per cent decline
in performance.
Tapping into people’s strengths also
means enhanced teamwork, retention
of talent and fulfilment at work.
Focusing on strengths is one slice of
the important pie of gratitude and appreciation. As Dr Sonya Lyubomirsky, a
researcher on happiness, says, gratitude
“is a kind of meta-strategy for achieving happiness”.
I started a daily gratitude practice more
than five years ago and one reason
I’m studying it closely now for my work
is because of the personal joy and peace
I have experienced in using it.
by Chua Chin Kiat
Chairman, Centre for Enabled Living and
former Director of Prisons (1998-2007)
this, you experience much more ease
and growth.
Give impactful appreciation. Express
how someone’s actions made you feel,
what organisational need they met, and
what strengths you saw in them. If
someone does some great work, tell their
boss, tell them personally and where
possible, appreciate them in public.
“What are you grateful for today or
this week?” Pose such a question during meetings. Put up a visual reminder
at your desk.
Discover and use your
strengths wisely. Harness
strengths instead of
weaknesses in others.
If you’re ready to start focusing on
what’s working, here are a few tips.
Develop a daily practice. List at least
three things you are grateful for every
day. Include what you appreciate about
yourself. Use a method that works best
for you, whether it’s a journal or an app.
Start with gratitude for what’s working well. Then learn to discover and
appreciate the hidden gifts and lessons
behind difficulties. When you can do
Discover and use your
strengths wisel y. Harness
strengths instead of weaknesses in others.
Focusing on what’s working
is a transformational approach
to life. It is especially useful
when you do need to look at
what’s not working.
So – what are you grateful for today?
Vadivu Govind is the founder of Joy Works
(joyworks.sg), a consultancy that specialises
in enabling people to access joy at work. A
Master of Public Administration graduate
from Columbia University, she is also an
accredited strengths practitioner.
DEAR YOUNG OFFICER,
As a public officer, before you start work
every morning, you should ask yourself
this question: “What can I do to add
value to someone’s life today?” (If you
are a CEO in a listed company, I think
the question should be: “What must
I do today to make my shareholders
richer?”)
Don’t laugh! The beginning of motivation is the ability to preach to yourself
and ask yourself the right questions. By
doing so, it helps us to always keep the
fundamental firmly in mind.
The question I started my letter with
can be more specific to your posting.
When I was Director of Prisons, the
question I asked myself was: “What
can I do to add value to some prisoners’ lives today so that they never have
to come back to prison again?” The
answer to the question differed as my
thinking on the matter evolved.
I quickly realised that I could not accomplish what I wanted to do on my
own. No matter how well we prepare
a prisoner to renew and restart his
life, many factors can derail our work.
What if his wife refuses to forgive
him? What if his children reject him?
What if no employer wants to give
him a job? These other key people in
his life are not within the ambit of the
Prison Service.
This problem led us to seek to
collaborate with other agencies in order
to touch these key people in a prisoner’s
life. I think one of the most neglected
of leadership qualities is likeability. As
we embarked on these very complex
collaborations to help released prisoners, I realised that people collaborate
with you not just because they like
your ideas. Very often, it is also because
they like you. Let’s be honest! Who
will work with people they dislike, if
given a choice?
Some of us are by disposition more
likeable than others. But there is always
something you can do to lift yourself
up the likeability scale. Let me offer a
few commonsensical suggestions.
First, be a person of your word. Never
renege on a promise, however small or
big it is.
Second, make yourself useful to other
people and agencies. If you help others
in small things, they will help you in
big things.
I realised
that people
collaborate with
you not just
because they
like your ideas.
Very often, it
is also because
they like you.
very smart people. I have attended
meetings with two very smart people
in the room. They carried a dialogue
all of their own and lost everyone else.
If you are too clever by half, no one
would want to collaborate with you.
So if you want to bring people along
with you, you must adjust your speed
to that which people are able to follow.
Third, be a good listener. Show interest
in others’ viewpoints. If you understand
their viewpoints and respond to them,
they will respond to yours.
In today’s public service, one cannot
accomplish much without collaborating
with other people. Very often, your key
collaborators are going to be people
outside the public service. If you are
an introvert like me, you are going to
be somewhat disadvantaged. You have
to overcome your natural shyness and
take the initiative to reach out to people.
Fourth, be patient and don’t talk above
people’s heads. This is a problem with
Work on your likeability. You will be
richly rewarded.
A Cuppa With...29
“Don’t
forget
the
People”
The woman responsible for
transforming Marina Bay now
has big plans for public housing in
Singapore. Challenge speaks to
HDB CEO Cheong Koon Hean.
Text by
Hong Xinyi
John Heng
Photos by
When it came to deciding
what she would study in university, Cheong Koon Hean decided to
marry her love of science and the
arts by specialising in architecture.
She realised later that her real passion lies in urban planning, which
she describes as more macro.
“A single building takes maybe two
or three years to complete, and is
less impactful,” says Dr Cheong,
who has a master’s degree in urban
development planning from University College London. “Urban planning works on a much larger scale,
and takes more time, but it can influence a city and a country.”
And she certainly has done that,
having become the single policymaker most closely associated with
Marina Bay’s glamorous makeover.
But the former Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) chief executive is not one to dwell on the
aesthetic audacities of Singapore’s
stylish new skyline. Ask her about
architects who inspire her, and Dr
Cheong mentions Moshe Safdie,
who had dreamed up Marina Bay
Sands’ curving towers and surreal
ship-shaped roof, as an example.
Dr Cheong – the daughter of
a self-made businessman and
homemaker – tries to have kopi
or meals at coffee shops and
visits rental blocks to get a feel
of the ground.
His striking building and the swanky
waterfront neighbourhood it dominates have propelled Singapore into
a new league of fast-developing, futuristic global cities. Dr Cheong’s
remarks about Mr Safdie are telling:
“He’s very hands-on, takes pride in
his work, and produced a very good
building.” The note of pragmatism is
pronounced – and somewhat unexpected, coming from someone who
frames the work of urban planners as
making dreams come true.
At the URA, where she was CEO
for six years, “we did a lot of dreaming... we’d to convince private developers that what we wanted to do
was worthwhile, in order for them to
build the way we envisioned the city
to be,” she says.
Her grasp of the big picture manifests
as a delight in details. She speaks of
how deliberate planning and persuasion led to the way public spaces at
Marina Bay connected with individual buildings. “That integration happened because it’s planned. If it feels
seamless, then we’ve succeeded.”
The CEO of the Housing and Development Board remains a dreamer
in her new job. “We’re creating a
good environment for people to live
in, making their lives better. It’s so
exciting to get your first home, and
as the master planner and developer,
we’ve to deliver homes that are good
value for money. We’ve to convince
people this dream (of owning a
home) is worth doing.”
To go from shaping the skyline to
contemplating the designs of rubbish
chutes in HDB blocks may seem like
a dramatic change. But she does not
believe that her new portfolio is necessarily more inward-looking than
her previous one.
Asia, she says, “is always in
a hurry. We build very fast,
and there is often not enough
time to reflect on what you
build”. Reserving time and space
for reflection is important for
the self-confessed nature-lover,
who was inspired by Britain’s
Lake District when naming the
That integration happened because it’s planned.
If it feels seamless, then we’ve succeeded.
“URA used to be more domestically
focused but we started to tap ideas
and marketed Singapore internationally when we recognised that
Singapore has to compete globally,”
she notes. The same applies to HDB.
“ We need to pay more attention to
good ideas that are out there. For
example, Singapore is a little behind in sustainability while Europe
is very far ahead. We can definitely
learn a lot from them. HDB must
do our part in this area, especially
since we are the largest developer in
Singapore. What we do can change
the industry.”
Indeed, she has her sights set on
much more beyond the hot-button
issues of supply and affordability that have dominated public discourse on public housing. Besides
sustainability, HDB will also focus
on creating more public spaces, and
community-centric towns.
“ We need to pay more attention to public spaces, how
to activate them so these
are very friendly and people
just congregate there,” she
says. “Place-making and
place management includes
a vision about how people
use a place. Don’t forget
the people.”
new Jurong Lake District during
her URA days.
She lets on that she loves fishing –
how as a young girl, she would fish
in Punggol while enjoying fresh
soursop juice. “ When my sons were
growing up, I liked to bring them to
the kelongs where our catch can be
cooked for us. It ’s very therapeutic
to slow down, just you and the sea. I
highly recommend it.”
If you have no time for a kelong
trip, try taking a stroll at Punggol
Waterway where you might find Dr
Cheong taking in the sunset.
What’s usually in your cup?
Coffee, in the morning.
Your favourite flavour or brand?
I prefer local coffee.
Where do you usually have
your cuppa?
It can be anywhere, like a coffee
shop or a hawker centre.
For more, read Double Shot at www.cube.gov.sg
Feature31
s if they are
Relook and overhaul system
thought leader
keeping talent out, urges
Malcolm Gladwell.
by Bridgette See
D on ’ t tell M alcolm G ladwell
you either have talent or not. That perspective is
“fundamentally defeatist”, said the author of The
Tipping Point and Outliers at the 30th SIM Annual
Management Lecture in August 2011.
Hailed as the “pop purveyor of new ideas” by Time
magazine, Mr Gladwell believes that, for too long,
humans accepted that it is “beyond our ability” to
do some things. The real problem is low “human
capitalisation” or the rate at which a community
capitalises on the human potential of its people, a
concept introduced by psychologist James Flynn.
The great modern challenge
Exploiting talent is the great challenge of the
modern age, said Mr Gladwell. This is especially
relevant to Singapore, whose only natural resource
is human capital.
A competitive runner in his youth, he said that a
defeatist would see a “scarce thing called running
talent held exclusively by the residents of Kenya”
and apart from “importing large numbers of Kenyans
and interbreeding vigorously with the Singaporean
population, there’s no way Singapore can ever field
a world-class set of long-distance runners”.
But American marathoner Alberto Salazar found
that about a million Kenyan schoolboys run at
least 10 miles a day so there is little chance of
overlooking any child with running potential. “Their
capitalisation rate is probably 100 per cent.” In other
countries, great runners are just never discovered.
Poverty trumps genius
Human capitalisation levels are “depressingly” low in
developed economies. After World War I, American
psychologist Lewis Terman tracked children with
IQ of above 140 and found a group who struggled
in adulthood. They grew up in homes where parents
did not attend college, learning was not prized, or
there wasn’t enough money for books.
“Poverty trumps genius,” said Mr Gladwell. Relative
income disparity is just as detrimental to human
capitalisation as absolute poverty. A widening income gap makes it difficult for those at the bottom
to make best use of their talents – even in rich
and developed countries.
“The country with the (second) highest rate of
inequality (based on the Gini coefficient) in the
world is Singapore. It ’s a reflection of an
extraordinarily economically dynamic place
where great fortunes can be made but… if
you want to improve productivity for the
whole country, you’ll have to think deeply
of ways of narrowing gaps between the
wealthiest and the poorest citizens.”
Stupidity gets in the way
Mr Gladwell was also blunt on
another constraint: the “stupidity” of systems with no logic. As
highlighted in Outliers, most
professional hockey players in
the US and Canada are born in
the first quarter of the year as
the cut-off age for selection
is on January 1.
Each year, children are
picked to be groomed
as Olympians or professionals. But the eldest,
not the best, are often
chosen. “At six and seven,
the difference in a child
born in Januar y and December is enormous,” he said,
“One could be three inches taller
or 15 pounds heavier.”
The same happens for IQ testing. Again,
the intellectual abilities of children born
in January and in December can differ enor-
mously at a young age. A recent University College
London study showed that teens had IQ scores
that rose or fell by as many as 21 points over the
years, indicating that IQ levels could change, and
someone “average” could become “gifted”, vice versa.
IQ is not ever ything
Relying on IQ tests is not enough in
capitalising on human potential.
A study of an elite New York
school found that in 38 years,
most of the students with IQ
of 145 and above did “very
little” eventually. They won
no Nobel prizes, were not
extraordinary entrepreneurs, nor made a mark
on society.
Any system selecting only for IQ
would leave a lot
of talent on the
table. There is
a “dangerous
tendency ”,
in Singapore and
the US, to
be overly
selective in
education.
“We’ve carried
the idea of elite
education about as
far as it can go and I
think it’s time to back
off a little and wonder
about what we’ve lost, what
kind of costs there are.”
Finding the “with-it-ness”
In selecting teachers, countries have focused on
raising their academic standards and training them
more rigorously. But when American researcher
Jacob Kounin looked at how great teachers kept
classrooms disciplined, what mattered was the sense
of “with-it-ness”, a teacher’s way of communicating
that “I know what’s going on” through body language.
These teachers have the proverbial “eyes at the
back of their heads” – a quality that has zilch to
do with IQ.
“How do you get ‘with-it-ness’?” asked Mr Gladwell.
“Nobody knows. The only way to find out is to put
[teachers] in a classroom and see.”
These teachers
have the
proverbial
“eyes at the
back of their
heads” – a
quality that
has zilch to do
with IQ.
So American education reformists are
proposing a system:
“If you have a BA
from an accredited
college and if you
have a pulse, you
can teach”.
If teachers do well,
they are retained
after three years; if
not, they will be let
go. This would be
messy and require
lots of time and money, as it cycles thousands
through the profession to find the best teachers.
But it is a way to open up the process to make
best use of talent, said Mr Gladwell.
And while the rates of human capitalisation are now
“absurdly” low, there is cause for optimism as scarcity
of talent is not something to live with, but something
“we can do something about”.
Feature33
All aboard the
PUBLIC
ENGAGEMENT
train
Public off icers are increasingly engaging the
public in the work they do. The journey together
isn’t always a smooth one, but the destination
can be rewarding. Ryandall Lim reports that
the key is to connect and build relationships.
P h o to s by
John Heng
Wh en upset resi dents
from Maplewoods Condominium sent
a petition to Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong against having a Mass Rapid
Transit (MRT) worksite launch shaft
outside their condominium entrance
without prior consultation, officers
from the Land Transport Authority’s
(LTA) Project Communications knew
they were in for a tough time.
After several dialogues – including one
where they were “ousted”, subjected to
near interrogation and nasty namecalling from confrontational residents
– a compromise was reached and the
shaft remained, but traffic and pedestrian paths were adjusted. The heated
exchange which began in May 2011 took
more than six months to simmer down.
Why engage the public, if processes can
become laborious? The answer is simple:
the public is now more sophisticated,
vocal and expectant, and a whole lot
less tolerant.
It’s not overnight that citizens have
become more demanding, but it has
certainly been clearer in recent years.
The Prime Minister himself has said the
government has to be more interactive
and inclusive with “more initiative from
the ground-up and fewer top-down
directions”. Public engagement has
become a necessity.
emotional level...” Hence, added Mr
Chew, it is ultimately about managing
relationships.
Making the connection
Mr Chew’s sentiments are lived out
at LTA. Since inception in 1995, LTA
has engaged the public on major infrastructure projects like constructing
expressways and MRT lines. Recently,
it established more visible public engagement initiatives.
In 2008, LTA launched its Community Partnership Network, deploying
staff to work closely with advisers and
grassroots organisations as well as attend Citizens’ Consultative Committee
meetings to manage day-to-day issues.
Project Communications addresses new
LTA projects. These efforts facilitate
feedback between LTA, the grassroots
and the public, resulting in much
quicker and more effective resolution
of issues. However, they are obviously
more labour- and resource-intensive, as
officers have to undergo new training
to engage effectively.
“As with anything, change involves
adaptation as we shift in focus to the
people-centric aspect of our system,”
says Mr Chandrasekar, LTA’s Traffic
and Community Partnership Director.
Another initiative, FOLTA or “Friends
of LTA”, invites people with keen
interest in land transport matters to
feedback sessions pegged to new station walk-throughs, as well as site and
tunnel visits. This two-way exchange
can generate more ideas and enhance
mutual understanding.
But with the many feedback mechanisms
available – hotlines, surveys,
Why engage the public, if processes can
become laborious? The answer is simple:
the public is now more sophisticated, vocal
and expectant, and a whole lot less tolerant.
But first, it must be understood that
not everything can involve the public.
“Greater public engagement is not a
free-for-all,” said Land Transport Authority CEO Chew Hock Yong at the
2011 Public Service Staff Conference.
“We have to be very careful about which
issues the government is best-placed to
take all views into account and then
decide and explain to the people and
implement.” (Read Challenge March/
April 2010 for more on co-creation)
After identifying issues, the key is
to connect.
“If you show that you are out there, you
are prepared to listen, and prepared to
work with them on a solution... people
relate to you at a relationship and
Reaching out to commuters: From left: Michael Yap
(Friends of LTA), Bernard Lim Hock Siew (Community
Partnership), Ho Kok Khun (Project Communications),
Rena Teo and Muhammad Ismail (Community Partnership).
Feature35
Setting a track record: The Rail
Corridor Project ranks among MND
and URA’s most extensive public
engagement exercises. (Clockwise
from top left): Tan See Nin (URA),
Eliza Choo (URA), Lee Chung Wei
(MND), Claire Chan (URA) and
Glodia Choi (URA).
relevant stakeholders in discussions can let new dynamics
arise, allowing for clarification
of issues as groups understand
others’ constraints.
Explains LTA’s Mr Chew:
“sometimes, one view can be
countered by another that
moves in the different direction. People will appreciate
that you have to consider
different views to an issue.”
Agencies should not be too
fixated with their agendas
and go through the motions
of open dialogue. No matter
how tempting it might seem
to steer a discussion towards
a pre-formulated outcome, the
challenge is to keep an open
mind. Instead, tap pluralistic
views and ideas generated,
which may eventually allow
for co-creating a vision.
Seizing the
opportunity
interviews, focus groups, town-hall
meetings – agencies need to determine
which method to employ.
In her article Developing Our Approach
to Public Engagement, Civil Service
College Senior Researcher Lena Leong
writes in Ethos magazine that in a
public engagement exercise, it is vital
to “determine who, when and what to
consult, as well as how to include an
appropriate plurality of voices.”
Furthermore, making the final collective
contribution visible is just as important
“to dispel misperception that decisions
were made prior to consultation” and
show that the government actually
listens. When collected data is not revealed, the exercise fails to reach closure
and the public may not feel consulted.
Reaching a compromise
Agencies might sometimes also encounter stakeholder groups whose
varied agendas skew decisions, making
conclusions hard to achieve. To help
reframe issues, identifying and including
When it was announced in
May 2010 that the Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad
(KTMB) railway system from
Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands
would cease operations and
the former Malaysian railway lands would revert to
the Singapore Government,
significant public interest was
piqued. The Nature Society
(Singapore) sent in a proposal
for the preservation of a 26-kilometre
continuous “green corridor”. Netizens
began to garner widespread support by
setting up websites such as The Green
Corridor (www.greencorridor.org) and
writing blogs dedicated to the cause.
The We Support the Green Corridor
in Singapore Facebook page currently
has nearly 7,500 ‘likes’.
Recognising the unique opportunity
to involve the public, the Ministry of
National Development (MND) and
the Urban Redevelopment Authority
(URA) embarked on The Rail Corridor Project, to crowd-source for ideas
on the lands’ development. When the
last trains pulled out of Tanjong Pagar
Railway Station, the entire railway line
was opened to the public for two weeks,
to allow them to experience the tracks
and surrounding nature.
MND and URA began on a “clean slate”
without any preconceived detailed plan
in mind as a proactive response to the
widespread interest. It set up the Rail
Corridor Consultation Group (RCCG)
– comprising NGOs, cyclists and nature
bloggers – to contribute ideas. Minister
of State (National Development) Tan
Chuan-Jin chairs the group, which
meets regularly for updates and discussions. Their role as an advisory group, he
says, will be key at different stages of the
engagement process.
The Friends of the
Rail Corridor, one
of the NGOs in
the Consultation
Group organised
the Re-imagining
the Rail Corridor
exhibition, which
showcased works
from architectural and landsc ape
students and design professionals, on
what the future rail corridor could
look like. In November 2011, URA
launched Journey of Possibilities, an
ideas competition inviting the public
to share creative visions and ideas for
the future use of the Rail Corridor in
response to five key challenges and issues that would need to be addressed
in designing the Rail Corridor. Based
on these contributions, URA will involve planners and architects to assist
in developing its Rail Corridor draft
master plan.
because we are consulting the public
for ideas at an extremely early stage,
without even a draft plan to serve as
a point of reference,” reveals URA’s
Director, Physical Planning (Central
West) Tan See Nin, The Rail Corridor
Project’s team leader.
“Public engagement inevitably raises
expectations that the government will
be more transparent in thinking and
will be prepared to listen and accept
alternative views. Public officers must
therefore learn to handle differences
of opinion and be prepared to explain
perspectives as best as we can.”
Sustaining the relationship
Public engagement, on any level, empowers the citizenry, giving them a
sense of ownership over policies. It
enhances accessibility to government
“Engagement efforts consume government resources and, in the short term,
can appear less efficient than decisionmaking by fiat,” writes Ms Leong, in
her article.
Moreover, co-created outcomes may
prove inconsistent with service standards, and tedious policy deliberations
could hinder the government’s ability
to manage and plan decisively in the
long term.
Is the public sector ready and willing to embrace these changes as their
operating environments become more
dynamic?
Ms Leong believes there has to be a
change in mindset: “Engagement is not
a one-off event. Its quality ultimately
depends on the quality of relationship
Public engagement inevitably raises expectations that
the government will be more transparent in thinking and
will be prepared to listen and accept alternative views.
The Rail Corridor Project ranks among
MND’s and URA’s most extensive
public engagement exercises to-date,
leading the government ’s call to be
more inclusive.
“We are perhaps breaking new ground
agencies and adds an emotional aspect
to policy-making. However, it must be
sincerely administered.
In an article from GovCamp Singapore 2011, a conference on improving
public engagement using technology,
participants felt this was especially true
in cyberspace where maintaining an
“honest, open and unfiltered engagement” was paramount.
The engagement process may be intricate but when done correctly, not
only increases the government’s transparency and accountability, but builds
trust among the people and broadens
base support, allowing room for public empathy should outcomes fail or
require change.
But to reach these goals, some sacrifices
have to be made.
and trust stemming from the agency’s
record at engagement and delivery, as
well as day-to-day interactions with
public officers, leaders, and fellow
citizens.”
“Full management support and having
a clear understanding of the desired
outcomes from such an exercise are
therefore critical factors for public
engagement to be sustained and done
well,” says URA’s Mr Tan.
Only then can meaningful relationships
with the public work.
This is the first of a two-part series on
Public Engagement.
Perspectives37
Carefully now: Service instructor Tye Yee Nen (above, left) and Chef Flora (right picture) give pointers on mocktail mixing and food plating, respectively.
Kitchen confidantes: Chef Flora (centre) and colleague Chef Soon (right) work closely with students to give them a taste of the culinary world at Republic Polytechnic’s
Restaurant Training Laboratory .
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Challenge trails two public off icers at Republic Polytechnic’s restaurant
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Oliva, as they serve up Singapore’s next generation of hospitality staff.
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Te x t by Bridgette See P h o to s by Norman Ng
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No Hell’s
Kitchen,This
She’s an award-winning
chef. He’s a seasoned restaurateur. Chef
Flora Lam, 43, and service instructor Tye
Yee Nen, 41, both started out at Raffles
Hotel. Now, at Republic Polytechnic’s
School of Hospitality, they and their
team get students ready for the dogeat-dog world out there.
But here, it’s nothing like Hell’s Kitchen
– the hit reality TV series starring
celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay whose
abrasive barking makes grown men weep.
Instead, as the minute hand inched towards lunch hour, there is calm, tinged
with excitement.
Though Oliva opens for two hours daily
during the school term – serving $9.50
set meals – the crew has been here since
8am to get ready. The students – in
smart white uniforms with hair tucked
neatly into black caps – huddle round
Chef Flora as she preps them for the
impending flurry when orders stream in.
The mother ly chef, who calls her
students ‘dears’ and ‘darlings’, throws in a
pinch of sternness and a dash of humour.
“So, who will brown the chicken?” she
asks a team preparing the main course,
urging them to rehearse their workflow. “Make sure you don’t overdo the
veggies,” she reminds a student responsible for side dishes.
Oliva was set up a year ago to give
students of Restaurant and Culinary
Operations a taste of working life. Besides
food preparation, students take on “frontof-house” duties such as being a manager,
captain, waiter, bartender or cashier.
At lunch-hour, Mr Tye stands at a corner
with a hawk’s eye. He sees a barista
about to steam milk and intervenes –
“Are you making a latte? No? Then don’t
steam it yet.” – before blending into
the background again in his dark suit.
While service is important, he is most
concerned that trainees do not hurt
themselves as they weave through the
tables, laden with hot food or beverages.
Sometimes he even plays counsellor –
pulling aside distressed students (who
have spilled food or broken dishes) to
comfort and encourage them.
At 2.30pm, when the heavy glass doors
close after the last guest, there is a sense
of relief. The students gather to sample
the food they cooked, before a debrief.
They return for class next week.
As for Oliva’s chefs and service staff, they
are back tomorrow for another class of
students, ready to serve up more talent
for the future.
For more on Chef Flora and Mr Tye, visit Challenge Online at www.challenge.gov.sg for our exclusive photo essay.
38 Unsung Heroes
Level Up39
Like clockwork
Ever wondered how everything is perfectly set up in the office every day?
Text by
Siti Maziah Masramli
Photo by
John Heng
T he Accounting and C orporate
Regulatory Authority (ACRA) meeting rooms are named
‘Zen’, ‘Inspiration’ and other such uplifting words. But working
there could feel otherwise, if not for Ms L Magaeish Sri, 42.
Her main duties are sorting outgoing mail and other
administrative work, but she also spruces up the meeting
rooms and staff lounge, keeps them stocked with refreshments,
and distributes personal office stationery to staff monthly.
Every morning, the Support Service Officer in Management
Services Division works like the invisible elves in the
shoemaker’s fairy tale. She opens the doors to the office,
checks the room booking system and prepares meeting
rooms accordingly.
Last year, Ms Magaeish “put [herself ] in the position to
help out” for maintenance, going beyond her work scope to
do routine checks on light bulbs and machines. “If there
is any breakdown, I’ll quickly make a call so it does not
interrupt the staff ’s work.”
Ms Magaeish has a “never-failed” record of arriving at 7
am to open the doors for cleaners and early-bird colleagues,
though her official reporting time is 730 am. Business hours
begin at 8 am.
“I try to do more than what I’m given to help others and at
the same time I can learn. If I just do the same thing all the
time, I won’t be adding value to the organisation,” she says.
She is usually the first to reach the office, but once arrived
to find a staff member already waiting for the doors to be
opened. “Maybe he wanted to escape the ERP charges,”
she joked.
Touched to be nominated as an Unsung Hero, Ms Magaeish
calls it a highlight of her 11 years of service. “I was not aware
that someone really appreciated my work. It is something
very unforgettable to me, that they recognise my work.”
This is the fifth (and last) in a series to celebrate those working
behind the scenes to keep our daily operations running smoothly.
For previous Unsung Heroes stories, go to www.challenge.gov.sg.
Where do you sit in your
‘Career Car’?
Knowing this could move your career up a notch, says Michael Podolinsky.
Do you have a career or
just a job? Start by asking if you are
the chauffeur, navigator or the owner
of your “career car” and plot a new
route to move your career up to the
next level.
The chauffeur: This person drives the
car but does not make decisions on
where the car is going. Someone else,
a boss, spouse or in-law tells you what
you need to do and where you need
to steer your career. The chauffeur has
little control over the direction of the
“Career Car”, often feeling more like a
servant, a person forced by circumstance
to drive in unfulfilling directions or
even circle the same block over and
over. “You NEED this job.” “We are
behind on the mortgage.” “You don’t
have the education or experience for...”
The navigator: The navigator determines the direction of the Career Car,
but not entirely on his own. Direction is
based on destinations assigned by others.
No one says “turn left” or “circle the
block” like what the chauffeur hears, yet
the location is chosen for you. “If you
want to get ahead, you must...” “Keep
the boss happy and don’t rock the boat.”
The owner: The owner owns his career;
the boss is a client and workers are “my
team”. This elevated position allows the
owner to question ideas, take breaks
as needed, set a good example for the
team and never feel “obligated” to go
to work. Instead, the owner is in career
control, respected and on the expressway
to upward mobility.
Eight tips to be the owner of your
career:
• Be proactive and ask your boss about
your career path and what you need
to learn. Volunteer for projects which
will stretch you and delegate away
those you’ve mastered. If you’re in a
supervisory role, encourage your team
by talking to them about their career
paths. Give them reasons to take on
new assignments and grow.
• Treat your boss like a client and
colleagues like your customers. Serve
like a restaurant owner serves top
clientele.
• Keep your Career Car’s petrol tank
full. Full of energy (eat right and
exercise), full of motivation (read,
watch and listen to successful
people) and full of new ideas. Owners
must maintain their car.
• Stick to your core skills, passions and
strengths. Write down what they are,
reviewing and using them daily.
• Set long-term goals and back them
up with short-term actions. These are
your roadmap to success.
• Volunteer to help others outside your
team. To get promoted, you must
know more than your own area
of responsibility.
• Get mentored; share your mentor’s
advice to guide others. Be a service
kiosk of information.
• Have fun. Make your meetings and
workday fun through involvement,
sharing, food and simply enjoying
the ride.
What will you do to truly be the owner
of your Career Car and to help your
team become the owners of their Career
Cars as well?
A Singapore PR, Michael Podolinsky is
a cer tified speak ing professional and
author of Productivity: Winning in Life
(McGraw-Hill, 2011,available at major
bookstores). He is a 22-year veteran trainer
for the Singapore Institute of Management.
www.MichaelPodolinsky.com.
Feature41
Left: Bronze
statues of the
Malay Regiment’s
3-inch mortar team
at Reflections at
Bukit Chandu.
Below: Visitors can
peer into the “Well
of Reflections” to
see the reflection
of an overhead
diorama depicting
several scenes of
the battle.
If you drive along Pasir Panjang Road, keep
an eye out for Pepys Road, a small lane that
leads up a hill known as Bukit Chandu. This
was where a fierce battle was fought between
the Japanese soldiers and the Malay Regiment on February 13 and 14, 1942 during
World War II. It was the final stage of Japan’s
invasion into Singapore.
Situated on high ground, Bukit Chandu was
a key defence position overlooking the island
to the north. If the Japanese soldiers gained
control of the Pasir Panjang ridge, they would
have direct passage to the Alexandra area
where the British ran a military hospital
and stored their ammunition and supplies.
Left: Lieutenant
Adnan bin Saidi
led the 1st and
2nd Battalions
of the Malay
Regiment to fight
the Japanese on
Bukit Chandu on
February 13, 1942.
The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Malay
Regiment put up a strong defence but was
outnumbered. Led by Lieutenant Adnan Bin
Saidi, the 1,400 soldiers battled with some
13,000 Japanese troops. W hen they ran
out of ammunition, the soldiers resorted to
hand-to-hand combat, stubbornly refusing
to surrender. When captured, Lieutenant
Adnan was tortured and hung by the feet on
a tree and bayoneted to death after refusing
to strip his uniform.
Reliving
the Past
Today, a World War II interpretative gallery
of photographs, oral history interviews and
audio-visual clips, commemorates the courage,
tenacity and sacrifice of the Malay Regiment.
Singapore commemorates Total Defence Day annually to mark the fall of Singapore to Japan on
February 15, 1942. Challenge remembers the war heroes with a trip to Reflections at Bukit Chandu
and Memories at Old Ford Factory – two little-known spots that document the events leading up to,
and life during, the Japanese Occupation of Singapore.
Reflections at Bukit Chandu
Address: 31-K, Pepys Road, S (118458) Tel: 6375 2510
Admission: $2 Website: www.s1942.org.sg
Nur’Ain Zainuddin P h o to s by John Heng
Milestones
Te xt by
The Last Battle
December 8, 1941
The Japanese launch
air raids and begin
bombing all over
Singapore
January 8, 1942
Japanese troops
penetrate the outer
lines of defence at Kuala
Lumpur, Malaya
January 11, 1942
The Japanese discover
food, ammunition
and military maps of
Singapore in the railway
yards of Kuala Lumpur
January 17, 1942
The British blow up
a bridge linking Malaya
and Singapore to
stop the Japanese
from entering
January 30, 1942
The British troops
retreat to Singapore
February 1, 1942
The Japanese troops
repair the destroyed
causeway and reach
Singapore
February 5, 1942
The Japanese attack
Pulau Ubin, drawing
the British to move to
that region
February 8/9, 1942
The Japanese begin
invading the northwest
of Singapore
February 10, 1942
The British Royal Air
Force withdraw the small
number of aircraft from
Singapore to prevent
Japanese capture
February 11, 1942
The Japanese 5th Division
attacks Indian, Chinese,
and British troops along
Choa Chu Kang and Bukit
Timah Roads
Feature43
Clockwise from top left: A wall display
recounting the fall of Singapore; the vivid
paintings and sketches that were secretly
drawn by POW William Haxworth are turned
into colourful window displays at Memories at
Old Ford Factory; an old newspaper clip on the
reversal of fortunes as Japanese war prisoners
worked at the Padang while being watched by
released POWs; a group of POWs photographed
shortly after the Japanese surrender; and a
replica of the table with the original chairs
used during the 1942 surrender negotiations
between the British and Japanese.
Below: Bronze statues of LieutenantGeneral Arthur Ernest Percival (left) and
Lieutenant-General Yamashita Tomoyuki
at Memories at Old Ford Factory.
Factory of Fear
You might miss it if you weren’t looking
out for it. This nondescript building situated
along Upper Bukit Timah Road (originally
known as the Ford Motor Factory) was the
first Ford vehicle assembly plant in Southeast
Asia. Before the Japanese Occupation, the
British Royal Air Force used the factory’s
modern assembly equipment to assemble
fighter aircraft and military vehicles.
• Bukit Chandu is the
Malay term for “Opium
Hill” as there was an
opium-processing
factory at the foot of
the hill.
It was here that the British General Officer
Commanding (Malaya), Lieutenant-General
Arthur Ernest Percival, surrendered to the
Japanese Commander of the 25th Army,
General Yamashita Tomoyuki, on February
15, 1942.
• During the battle
of Bukit Chandu, the
Malay Regiment fought
at the ratio of one
Malay Regiment soldier
to about 10 Japanese
soldiers.
During the Occupation, General Yamashita
used the factory to produce trucks and other
military vehicles for military campaigns. Prisoners of war were also tortured here when
part of the factor y became the Japanese
headquarters. In 1947, the Ford Motor Factory resumed operations and was shut down
when the company left Singapore in 1980.
• At the Battle of Bukit
Chandu, the Malay
Regiment soldiers were
able to see through
the Japanese troops
disguised as Punjabi
troops from their
marching formation –
the Japanese soldiers
were marching in
a line of four while
Punjabi soldiers always
marched in a line
of three.
Gazetted as a national monument in 2006, the
building was restored and now has oral history
narrations, artefacts, photos and documentaries
that pay tribute to those who underwent the
Japanese Occupation.
Memories at Old Ford Factory
Address: 351, Upper Bukit Timah Road, S(588192)
Tel: 6332 7973 Admission: $3
Website: www.s1942.org.sg
February 13, 1942
Singapore’s main
defensive weapons –
15-inch coastal guns
supposed to cover
all sea approaches to
Singapore in Changi and
Faber – are destroyed
February 13, 1942
The battle between the
Malay Regiment and
the Japanese begins at
Bukit Chandu, lasting
two days
February 14, 1942
After the fall of Bukit
Chandu, the Japanese
attack Alexandra
Barracks Hospital, killing
more than 320 people
February 15, 1942
General Yamashita Tomoyuki
and his aides discuss if they
should continue fighting
or wait for the British to
surrender at Fort Canning,
before proceeding to Ford
Motor Factory
February 15, 1942
The British surrender
at Ford Motor Factory
February 17, 1942
Singapore is renamed
Syonan-To, “Light of
the South”
August 6, 1945
An atomic bomb is
dropped on Hiroshima,
Japan by the Americans
August 9, 1945
Americans drop a
second atomic bomb
on Nagasaki, Japan
August 15, 1945
The Japanese
surrender
September 12, 1945
A surrender ceremony
takes place at the
Municipal Building of
Singapore (now known as
City Hall), marking the end
of the Japanese Occupation
in Southeast Asia
44 The Irreverent Last Page
The Civil Servant’s Prayer
Like good public off icers, we thumbed through Pioneers Once More (remember the book?) and found
this gem of a poem that was screaming to be shared. Written by an anonymous contributor, the tonguein-cheek poem was published in a civil service newsletter in 1960. We think it could still work today.
*Go to Challenge Online at www.challenge.gov.sg to share the poem or turn to page 46 of Pioneers Once More if you have it.
1. The
is organised by the Singapore
International Foundation (SIF) to inspire and
equip youths to embark on social enterprises in
Singapore and the region.
a. Young Social Entrepreneurs Programme
b. Social Innovation Convention
c. Social Entrepreneurs Conference
d. Young Innovators Workshop
2. Under SPRING Singapore’s Technology Innovation
has been set aside
Programme (TIP),
over the next five years to help Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) exploit technology innovation
to grow and differentiate themselves from the
competition.
a. $120 million
b. $220 million
c. $320 million
d. $420 million
was envisaged as a way to harness
3. The
multi-disciplinary research capabilities to develop
solutions to large and complex national
challenges facing Singapore.
a. National Innovation Challenge
b. National Creative Problem Solving Competition
c. Innov8 for Singapore Movement
d. Great Singapore Innovation Challenge
in 1767
4. John Spilsbury created the first
as an educational tool to teach geography.
a. globe
b. jigsaw puzzle
c. relief map
d. cartogram
5. Business theorist Clayton Christensen coined the
” to describe products or services
term “
that create a new and unexpected market.
Need We Say More?
Here’s where we let the humour loose, and learn to laugh
at ourselves a little more. Have ideas or jokes about the
Public Service? Email us: [email protected]
a. explorative innovation
b. discovery innovation
c. profitable innovation
d. disruptive innovation
Pairs of
Movie Vouchers
To Be Won
Submit your answers by
february 3, 2012 at:
Challenge Online
www.challenge.gov.sg
Please include your name, email address,
agency and contact number.
All winners will be notified by email.
Congratulations
to the winners of the
November/December 2011 Trivia Quiz
Chiang Tong Lam June, CPIB
Goh Chian Hao, MICA
Nishat Begum Bin Abdulla, MOF
Gregory Seah, SSC
Chia Soo Kiang, NLB
95%
Are you on target to utilise
of your ministry budget? Is it about spending what
you have so that you hit the utilisation rate? Turn to Page 4 for more information.