Today we celebrated Virginia Wong’s birthday. The day after her actual birthday.
It was a lunch hosted by Kaling at Sushi Ryujiro. The food was nice and the company was, as always, great. We talked about many things, most of which were quite minor and inconsequential but with quite a bit of time devoted to autistic children.. a topic on which I had very little to share…But who cares… it is always nice to be able to find the time and opportunity to catch up with friends, especially as time catches up with all of us!
I always make it a point to read the Obituary section of my Economist first. So when I opened this week’s edition, the obituary was about this lady.
I have never heard of her but what a fascinating life she had.
She was one of 10,000 Jewish children who arrived in London in 1939 by train under the Kinder transport program to escape Nazi Germany. She was aged 5 then and was from Austria.
She was very good in mathematics and in 1959 after having worked in a then male dominated society and workforce, she decided to start a company doing software with only £6 as capital. She employed only university educated women who were at that time not wanted in the workforce, especially after getting married or having children. She gave them an opportunity to work from home with flexible hours enabling them to stay home and look after their children.
In 1990s that company which was then employing 8500 people, was listed and in 2000, it had a valuation of £3 billion.
She gave away her fortune to her employees and to charity when she retired and she was made a Dame and a Companion of Honour. A lot of her money was given to autism causes.
What a remarkable life. Arriving alone on a train at the age of 5, fleeing Nazism. She had been saved and she wanted to make sure that she lived a life that had been worth saving. Amazing person.
This was the second session I attended and it was conducted by my good friend Chua U-Zyn who is now also an adjunct lecturer at NUS ISS.
The session was well attended. The presentation was very interesting with a live demo. If I was a software developer or coder, this session would be indispensable. The session was about how one can use Agentic AIs to make a detailed plan and code the software to carry out the plan. In this case, the demo required the AI to create a web based leave system for a small company of 20 people.
It is truly amazing what’s out there now and I learnt a lot from this very good and clear presentation.
This was held this morning at ISS, which is located at a quaint little part of Singapore and parked at the other corner from NUS. I arrived here early and so parking was not an issue at all.
This entire festival is focused on AI and there are multiple sessions starting from 930 till 5pm. There must be at least 30 sessions and they all look interesting but many of them run simultaneously and I have to pick and choose. Sigh.
For the 930am session I settled on The AI Reorg.. How AI is Restructuring Companies Faster than Leaders can Adapt by Damian Cummings.
It was an informative session but it was not something that I didn’t know. If you follow the news regularly and read the Economist from cover to cover, then what the speaker said you would already know. The current impact of AI, potential and present job losses, the shifts happening in organisations, the jobs most at risk and how to take some preventive steps and future proof oneself.
But it is a message that everyone needs to hear and to take seriously.
I just finished reading this book on my Kindle. This is a recently released book about Prince Andrew and his ex wife Sarah Ferguson.
It is well written and the research is thorough. Clearly the author has put in lots of work into this book and spoken to many sources to be able to come up with this level of detail on both of them.
It is shocking to read how much of an entitled life these royals lead. Both of them have almost nothing in terms of brain power or education but were given power and position and were protected from any negative news despite all their shenanigans. Both of them were leading lavish lifestyles at the expense of the British taxpayers and lining their own pockets from their royal connections,
Both of them were also leading carefree lives with multiple sex partners and it is very clear from the book that Prince Andrew is a sex maniac constantly seeking women wherever he goes. His connections with Jeffrey Epstein are well documented.
So many people knew what Prince Andrew and his ex wife were doing and I found it particularly shocking that the Palace, and in particular Queen Elizabeth, was doing everything within her power to cover up any negative news, threaten with defamation anyone who spoke up and all the while supporting them thereby allowing them to continue their misdeeds and financial shenanigans.
After having read this book I am surprised the British still allow the royal family to continue to exist with all their privileges and perks. I know the book just came out but I look forward to seeing what steps are going to be taken in the UK by either Parliament or the press to address the very serious issues raised in this book.
I just read that the UK and London in particular, is now the theft capital for stolen cars and phones.
Cars are stolen in UK in large numbers now by well organized gangs and almost within the same day they are shipped out in containers. Most of these stolen cars end up in Africa and in UAE.
Likewise London has also become the world’s snatch theft capital for handphones. Again by organized gangs but this time they are shipped to China where there is a thriving market for the stolen phones.
Shocking that amongst the very few things that UK is known for now, it is stolen cars and snatched phones. Whatever has happened to this country? Economy is in a poor state, the political situation is precarious and their leaders are mediocre at best. The only thing going for them is the overseas students populating their universities and propping up their economy. Sad state of affairs for a country which at one time ruled almost half the world. Looking at the quality of their current political and administrative leaders one wonders how in the world their previous generation managed that to rule half the world.
Today was the long overdue birthday lunch for Hamidul Haq. It is really getting harder to find dates when all of us can meet for a meal.. strange.. I would have thought it would get easier when we are at this age.
Anyway I suggested either Garibaldi, Tandoor or Origin Grill and Haq picked Garibaldi.
This would be his 62nd birthday. Retirement age beckons.
The food was alright although in retrospect I should have ordered from the a la carte menu.
FX was fashionably late, as usual. Conversation was great and we were talking for almost 3 hours.
Whilst at lunch yesterday, I caught up with Tan Wah Thong. An amazing man. He is the Chairman of the ACS International school board and is going to be 87 this year. But he still makes it a point to go to the school every day. He is actively involved in all that the school is doing, including all its overseas ventures. And he is still driving. His contributions to ACS are incalculable.
I first got to know Wah Thong in 1996, when he first became Chairman of the ACS Board of Governors. I myself had just gotten onto the Board that year. He was an outsider of sorts as he had never been involved in anything ACS until then, other than being a student there.
I liked him and he was so full of drive and energy. So many things in ACS now are the result of the initiatives started during his tenure as Chairman of the board.
The reconstruction of the ACS campus at Barker Road into a integrated primary and secondary school happened during his time. Some of us in the board took so much flak when we had to demolish the old clock tower. But it worked out well in the end.
Getting rid of the ACJC school badge and getting them to wear the ACS badge also happened during his time.
He made changes to the ACS board of governors constitution to change the structure and composition of the Board .
He was so focused on bringing all the schools together and to ensure that they all worked together as one ACS.
One of the initiatives I suggested to him was to do a joint newsletter for all schools. We started the Echo and to make it financially viable, made the schools pay for the copies. I was in charge of this project whilst he was the Chairman. And he ensured all the school principals played ball to make it a success. Till today, the newsletter is operating.
He also asked me organise a joint Founders Day celebration for all the ACS schools. We had never done this before. We did this event in the year 2000 and it was a massive undertaking. I chaired the organizing committee and we did the event at the Indoor Stadium. The then PM Lee Hsien Loong graced the event as GOH. It was a roaring success with 8500 students present celebrating Founders Day together. We then did another one in 2005 again at the Indoor Stadium. This time with the then Education Minister and an old boy Tharman Shanmugaratnam as our GOH. He ensured that every one of our principals was committed to ensuring these events were a success.
When we started off in 1996, the quality of our education in our ACS schools was rather wanting. ACS Independent was ranked 20 the first time rankings came out which shocked everyone. ACJC had become an institution no one picked as a school of choice, even our own ACS boys. He worked to improve the quality of teaching and CCA standards at all the ACS schools and within a few years both ACS Independent and ACJC became first choices for Singapore students.
Although ACS has been in existence since 1886, no one had compiled any sort of history of the school. He asked Ernest Lau, my former principal in ACS and who at that time was an archivist for the Methodist Church, to write the history. And so the ACS Story book was born. A huge undertaking. It also gave me an opportunity to work with Ernest Lau on the chapter of the book on the ACSOBA.
He was also responsible for the birth of ACS International. He negotiated with MOE, EDB and the SLA to get the suitable site, funding and staffing to start that school from scratch. I remember being part of the interviews for the principal. He chose John Barrett, an excellent choice.
He stepped down as Chairman of the ACS board of governors in 2008 to focus on ACS International. He became the Chairman of ACS International board and he holds that position till today. He asked me to be part of the original board of directors of that school in 2007 and I am still on that board. That school had been such a success and it contributes more than a million dollars each year from its operating profits to the Methodist Mission and the other ACS schools.
When one looks back on the history of ACS, his time as Chairman of both the ACS board of governors and ACS International will stand out as some of the most outstanding years of growth and unity in the history of ACS.
Today was the board meeting cum lunch of the ACS Jakarta board.
I have not been attending many of their meetings and I haven’t been to Jakarta on the occasions they have invited us over so I told myself I will make it a point to attend this one.
Lunch was at Tung Luk Signatures at Renaissance Hotel. Very good food and service and with pleasant company.
The school in Jakarta is doing well and they are now opening another campus as they are filled to capacity in their current location. Good for them. And their academic results are impressive as well and so many of their students doing the IB have gone onto top overseas universities. They have the best academic results of any international school in Jakarta. While we were having lunch, the owner Mucki raised so many interesting initiatives that he wants to try out.
I shall make it a point to attend their next event in their Jakarta campus.
daily musings 