Category: General

The party held its convention on Sunday. I am not a party member and so this is just my observation as an outsider.

The speech by the PM was as expected. Setting out the dangers of a new world order and promising to take care of the people and providing jobs and security.

Perhaps every political party convention expects it, but I felt there was an unnecessary swipe at the WP. The swipe didn’t make sense to me at all but there it was.

The interesting thing was their CEC election. There were hardly any changes from the previous election. The same older ones continued to be elected. No new faces got in. That to my mind doesn’t auger well for the next generation of younger ministers. The party’s cadre members are the older ones who are used to the older ministers and continue voting for them. They don’t know the newer ones and haven’t seen them doing things yet. That is understandable. But to continue voting for people who are in the mid 60s or more to maintain stability doesn’t make sense. Where is the succession planning that was promised? How will the new PM lead with a new team if the party leadership is populated by the older ministers?

Someone from overseas, who saw the list of elected candidates, said it was clear that the old guard was in charge.

That can’t be good, even optically.

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This festival was held last Friday and Saturday at Northpoint Shopping Mall. Our annual CDC event. Filled with information on courses, career guidance and coaching. Also we had 6 employers on standby with about 700 jobs available.

I am told that on Friday itself there was a footfall of about 1000 people with 200 job seekers.

The location was not ideal because the atrium was a bit small. But the reason why we picked it was because it attracts a lot of people there during the weekends.

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This talk was organised last Tuesday at the Fuchun CC for the North West community leaders.

It started off with a presentation by the ISD on the current terrorist threats facing Singapore. Clearly the world has become a much more dangerous place. The conflicts worldwide, especially in Gaza and Middle East are creating anger and radicalisation. Some just sympathise but others want to take up arms and fight for the cause. Singapore is seen as a good target because it is pro West and some see it as pro Israel. Other ideologies are also gaining ground such as the incel movement.

The talk was followed by a fireside chat with Minister Edwin Tong and Mayor Alex Yam. A good and useful session. I put out a post about my takeaways from the event.

Yesterday morning I got a text from the US Ambassador asking if I was free for brunch at short notice. Fortunately I was. He was open to having breakfast either at his residence or to meet at Madras Woodlands. I decided with the haze it was best to be at his residence. He kindly offered me a selection of Indian breakfast items and I picked poori.

The food cooked by his chef was great. We spent about an hour and a half eating and chatting about various things and people, including his Diwali event on 5 Nov.

I really enjoy his company and like him as a person. Glad that I had the opportunity to get to know him. Looking forward to working with him!

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I have chaired this committee at the NWCDC since its inception in 2017.

I was chairing the Finance Committee when Skills Future became part of the CDC. I strongly believed in this and I remember asking Dr Teo then if I could run this.

It has been good doing this. Meaningful work telling our residents about upgrading their knowledge and skills in the new era. Then when AI started coming up and jobs started disappearing, we have now taken on the task of helping residents find employment too.

Moving forward the focus of the committee will be AI training for residents and helping them with jobs.

At the start of the new term many younger new councillors have joined us. I felt it was good to meet for an informal chat and so I organised lunch on Friday at Bumbu restaurant.

Good food and conversation!

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It was about a month ago, when a friend approached me asking if a meeting could be arranged for Noel Tata and someone in Singapore.

I checked to see if it was possible and eventually that meeting was arranged and did take place on Tuesday morning.

After that meeting I met him for about 45 minutes and then went for lunch, hosted by Mayor Alex Yam at Violet Oon Ion.

A true gentleman. Calm, soft spoken and humble. He has an amazing knowledge of all the businesses in the Tata Group and was humble enough to admit the one area that he was not that top of things was software.

We spoke inter alia about AI, nuclear power and Air India. Fascinating to hear his views. On AI we spoke about the impact of AI on employment within the Tata Group and on training and education generally.

I am glad to have met him. I believe upbringing, education and discipline make a world of difference in how children turn out. Tata Group has managed that process well.

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I attended this inaugural conference by DBS on Monday. A whole day affair.

Being their inaugural event, DBS had pulled all the stops. Top names, amazing organisation and food. And to top it off, the PM was there for a coffee side chat to end the day.

Not much content that I didn’t already know but it was still good being there and meeting people.

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This was held last Saturday at Como Dempsey. I came back earlier from KL just to attend this.

Standing only event, packed and loud. But I managed to meet and talk to some people I know and so that was nice.

The highlight was Lucy Guo, only 31 but one of the youngest self made billionaires after co founding ScaleAI. She turned up slightly later to become the celebrity DJ. That was fun!

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This was the second half of the LPA talk. After last Sunday’s talk when 60 people attended, 39 signed up to do their LPAs.

This is a record number. Usually less than 5 will sign up after the talk but this number signing up was incredible.

I arranged for Shi Mei to do their LPAs. Took 3 and a half hours to get this done. But a very meaningful event!

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This was last Thursday at the Laguna Golf Club.

I went in my capacity as chair of Club 100 and they kindly seated me at the VVIP table.

The GOH was Minister Ong Ye Kung and together with Mayor Alex Yam, 6 other grassroots advisors were there. I enjoyed the dinner because I know so many people there over the many years. And I didn’t have to do anything but eat!