What’s New?

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In an International Women’s Day special on the Breaking Silos Podcast, Huda Hamid from Fempreneur Secrets dropped some truth bombs about pursuing business as a minority.

While we celebrate the great strides that women are taking every single day, it’s equally vital to acknowledge the persistent challenges that exist; even down to the sort of language that we think is “normal” to be used.

Huda also shared the important work that she is doing with her Fempreneur Academy, and also her new e-book on “The Art of Firing Your Boss”. Do check them out!

Are you facing challenges in succeeding in business and life? I would love to hear from you and help where I can. Leave your details below, to be updated on future silo-breaking content and activities.

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I had the pleasure of sharing my experiences of starting a business during Fempreneur Secrets‘ monthly mixer. I talked about how and why I went from being an academic-activist to setting up Hornbills: Concepts and Communications, and now the Breaking Silos Podcast. As I mentioned during the monthly mixer, #BreakingSilos speaks to the core of my personal and professional journey; that is the need to break cultural, class, and sectoral silos.

What was clear from what my fellow panelists and I shared on our business journeys is that it doesn’t matter how many resources you have, but rather how resourceful you really are.

It was also fantastic to see Huda launch her Fempreneur Academy, a platform for more women to be Fearless Fempreneurs. To find out more, click on this link.

Are you facing challenges in succeeding in business and life? I would love to hear from you and help where I can. Leave your details below, to be updated on future silo-breaking content and activities.

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News of 23 year old goalkeeper, Alexander Nübel’s departure from Schalke has been criticised by several sports commentators. Barely a year as Schalke’s captain and #1 goalkeeper, Nübel is choosing to move to Bayern Munich, where the odds of him actively playing and learning are close to zero. Like many other young players that were offered to move to the great Bayern Munich (read: $$$), he will be on the bench as the #2 goalkeeper, after Manuel Neuer. No games unless Neuer can’t play.

Had Nübel stayed in Schalke for a couple of years, the amount of experience gained of not only playing most Bundesliga games but also leading his team (both in winning and losing), is priceless. Nübel’s choice reminds me of some fresh graduates jumping at the chance to join a huge corporation but end up gaining limited opportunities to develop his/herself. Small teams/companies/organisations, on the other hand, are leaner and run faster, because everyone plays an important part.

What would you do if you were Nübel? Money and “fame”, or experience?

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Most disturbing news this week:

1. Australian fires: An estimated 480 million animals dead (that’s close to HALF A BILLION).

2. Krefeld zoo fire: Fire in primate enclosure, killing most, thanks to rogue New Year lanterns.

How’s your week going?

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Within a span of a year, Greta Thunberg’s weekly lone ranger act of skipping school to stage a climate strike outside the Swedish parliament has spread globally into what is known as the Fridays for Future movement. Despite being at the tender age of 16 and diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, Greta’s display of her commitment to the cause has been impressive.

By refusing environmental awards and refraining from travelling by air for international conferences, she has catapulted herself as a leading climate change campaigner, and earning audiences with various international leaders and politicians. Her message to them: to “listen to the science”, and also understand the acuteness of impending environmental disasters.

While these consistent and passionate efforts by a female teenager with disabilities are commendable, it is unclear how influential Greta’s call to “listen to the science” will be in getting politicians and corporations to address this “urgent climate emergency”.

Without discrediting the genuine concern that these young protesters have about the catastrophic impacts of climate change, one way forward would be to comprehensively understand existing societal concerns, and engage existing social movements. In other words, to listen to societies.

Read my full commentary here.

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A roundabout in Morocco, 15 km away from the Spanish occupied territory of Sebta.

Take-aways/observations:

1. Spain apparently tries to attract its citizens to settle in Sebta with higher paying jobs.

2. Interesting to see Border security on patrol, looking out for asylum seekers trying to cross in to Spain.

3. Surreal to see Fnideq’s main market.. where Morocco’s “mule women” bring the goods they transport in from Sebta.

Hmm…

spain morocco travelphotography women womensrights humansecurity refugees bordersecurity schengen colonialism geopolitics

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My partner, Luenne Choa, and I penned an op-ed for The Business Times on 16 Aug 2018,  on a PR stunt by the WWF office in Singapore.

The article discusses the challenges in managing truth, trust and transparency in an age of social media and fake news.

An abridged version of the article was published the next day in another Singapore-based newspaper, “The New Paper”

Click here to read the full article on The Business Times website.

Click here to read the abridged version in The New Paper (page 16).

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Beyond symbolic “feel good” environmental activities, there is much to learn and build on crises and traditional/cultural practices

In this piece,  I argued that what is lacking from existing environmental awareness campaigns, is the sustained experiential awareness of resource scarcity.

In the case of Singapore, given the fact that majority of residents start from a point of easy access to resources, they generally lack an acute experience of being without resources.

To read the article, click here.