I am not a tree hugger, but I fundamentally believe that Sustainability is a serious enabler for enhancing liveability and resilience across communities with hard science at the best cost with the optimal social licence. The entire climate change argument, seems to have turned in to the seminar and conference circuit. The engineers and the planners with the best models to determine the flood risk and further develop climate adaptive infrastructure. Climate Change requires risk to be quantified in to monetary terms.

Where is the money for massive decarbonisation journeys? All financial Institutions shall require climate risk assessment of infra financing. Over the last decade, the share of conventional sources of energy stays at 81 percent. The increase in power demand is bridged by renewables. Making conventional power work in a climate risk era is a conversation that is often amiss. They are still the major occupant of the energy mix. Creating the devil out of traditional oil and gas along with coal will not help. Let’s bring the climate conversation back to the lab from the conference room. Decarbonisation will entail land use change. Where are the compensation packages for land acquisition ? Most infrastructure projects are still born due to faulty social impact assessments. Sustainable development is about people, let’s bring the rigorous method back in to our impact assessments with serious stake holder assessment and predictive models.

Defines market economy

Dependent upon market headwinds

Depends upon egos

Precarious as hell

Two nonpayments to be thrown out

Waiting to be jobless

For some chat bot to take over

Jobless growth is the norm

Where will the normal graduate go?

In a quest to earn a living over the past decade, especially the rather boisterous and fluid time since 2014, I look back at the birthdays of mine and loved ones that I have missed, the anniversaries and ofcourse the numerous weddings of friends I have missed which I dearly wanted to attend in Yangon, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad. I missed a critical operation of Baba in the recent months just to keep work going. I cannot simply fathom the loss, all to keep work going and pay my bills.

I did not sign in to this when I was an engineering student in Muscat 14 years back. It’s a humongous price. Rather a litany of detritus of rotten tomatoes, my life has turned out to be beneath the glittering resume.

Predictive analytics and community level resilience have to couple up for climate adaptation to occur. Quantify impact of GHG emissions in Dollars and Cents, so that the impact is crystal clear. A lot of our impact assessment is qualitative bordering on vague as meaning making hinges many a time on the context.

For more than a library of research papers on low income migration from the global south, a community organisation with lawyers and doctors do more to help deliver aid, than an academic who writes on the lived experience with out helping out in any tangible manner.

How many papers do labor policy bureaucrats read?

I am glad that the Migrant Culture scene in Singapore has evolved from being an opposition minded anti PAP theatre to one which is thoroughly mainstreamed. The poor migrant workers who are interested in aid and support primarily are spared from being used as a pawn by so called activists.

Big Fat Weddings are good for business and they create jobs in the events sector. MICE is a big urban employment generator from Davos to Singapore. Social theorists who are criticising the large spends would probably vie for an endowed chair in a university sponsored by them. Jobs are real, and jobs created support lives, even if it is through a fancy wedding. It’s very well to read articles on The Wire or Scroll while sipping your mocha in Khan Market or Tiong Bahru and comment on the obscene wealth. It is power that brings HRC and Beyoncé to town. Business people work very hard to earn their money, as it is risk capital. They do better than engaging in flimsy debates.

The role of the Think/Do Tank is the reimagine the role of the knowledge mediator in the Sustainability Ecosystem with the generation of not merely white papers for the PR Mill but to develop actionable intelligence for the practitioner ecosystem whether it is in making science work for policy to guiding the consulting sector with the best tools for business. We are the catalyst for implementation, and we mean action, as rhetoric is for other talk shops.

The migrant culture scene in Singapore and Malaysia has boomed and is indeed very vibrant with amazing talents. A lot of them are known to me and have taught me resilience.

The ‘low skill migrant’ as a case for celebration is however problematic sans interrogation. If one extrapolates these lessons globally, migrants need legal aid and medical aid along with innovative financial inclusion products such as emergency insurance, such as buying a flight ticket back home is often an uphill task.

Let’s help people at the point of need rather than make a theatre out of it.

Without sponsors, mentors and souls willing to support us in our journey to support them, one cannot do anything substantial as every phenomenon, organisation and profession is a network of capital and idea flows. This is something not taught enough in college, as the same professor that one hates, offers a great interview tip a boss that foul mouths is usually the one which offers transformational advice and a great reference letter.

Build relationships, not grades.