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Articles by Uma
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Singapore Has a Safety Net. But Do We Know How to Fall Into It?
Singapore Has a Safety Net. But Do We Know How to Fall Into It?
Singapore has spent decades teaching people to be self-reliant. But when someone who has worked, paid taxes…
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What If Money Isn't the Only Currency?
What If Money Isn't the Only Currency?
Singapore has achieved First World prosperity. But have we outgrown a survival-economy definition of success? Perhaps…
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Why Singapore Cannot Say Universal Basic Income — and Why Musk’s Version Is Harder
Why Singapore Cannot Say Universal Basic Income — and Why Musk’s Version Is Harder
We are preparing for artificial intelligence. We are less prepared for life without the payslip.
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Singapore does not have a pay problem. It has a pipeline problem.
Singapore does not have a pay problem. It has a pipeline problem.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told Parliament that political salaries would be updated for the first time in…
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When Hormuz Hits Your Kopi
When Hormuz Hits Your Kopi
The government traced a war to your breakfast. That is either bureaucratic poetry or the most honest thing they have…
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The Subscription Mentality
The Subscription Mentality
We treat people the way we treat content. The data suggests the young are learning it first.
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Singapore 6.1: Please Do Not Turn Off Your Country While Updating
Singapore 6.1: Please Do Not Turn Off Your Country While Updating
Jobs, AI, ageing, babies, ambition and the next version of the Singapore Dream I watched the National Day Rally last…
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The Instant Noodle Generation
The Instant Noodle Generation
Why the rush for answers is starving our ideas, our schools, our children, and the kind of unicorns we rarely grow. We…
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“What Will People Think?” Is Teaching Our Children to Outsource Their Conscience
“What Will People Think?” Is Teaching Our Children to Outsource Their Conscience
There is a sentence many Asian parents reach for almost by instinct. “If you behave badly, the police will catch you.
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The Curse of Convenience
The Curse of Convenience
There is a particular quiet that settles over modern cities at night. The last delivery has been completed, the last…
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14K followers
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Uma Rudd Chia shared thisThis fourth execution from The Himalayan Times stopped me for a different reason. “A holiday is not enough.” It remembers young Nepalis whose lives were lost and asks a much bigger question: What do we do with their memory? A memorial day matters. But remembering should mean more than taking a day off. It should mean remembering the people, what they hoped for, what they stood for, and the Nepal they wanted to build. And right now, that country is also trying to recover from an enormous catastrophe. Nepal needs more than our sympathy. It needs us not to forget. Over these six days I'm sharing the work of my friend Ravin Lama and his team at The Himalayan Times because good storytelling does something statistics cannot. It makes us stop. It makes us see. And sometimes, hopefully, it makes us act. To support Nepal through Singapore Red Cross: PayNow: S86CC0370ERF1 Reference: Nepal Floods Red Cross Singapore Nepal Floods Response Credit: The Himalayan Times / Ravin Lama and team #Nepal #TheHimalayanTimes #UnstoppableNepal
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Uma Rudd Chia shared thisSome things cannot be rebuilt. Houses can. Roads can. Bridges can. But there are empty chairs around family tables that will remain empty. This third piece from The Himalayan Times’ Unstoppable Nepal series, created by my friend Ravin Lama and his team, is perhaps the quietest. And maybe that is why it hits so hard. Nepal mourned after the catastrophe. But grief shouldn’t belong only to Nepal. We live in a world where a tragedy can dominate our feeds for 48 hours and disappear almost as quickly as it arrived. The people left behind don’t get to scroll on. So today, just remember Nepal. And if remembering can become action, even better. Singapore Red Cross is accepting donations for its Nepal Floods Response until 30 November. PayNow: S86CC0370ERF1 Reference: Nepal Floods How to donate Credit: The Himalayan Times / Ravin Lama and team #Nepal #RememberNepal #UnstoppableNepal
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Uma Rudd Chia shared thisI was at the supermarket today when the newspaper stand stopped me in my tracks. English. Chinese. Malay. Tamil. Across the papers, the same uncomfortable picture: a growing labour market, rising retrenchments and fewer job vacancies. I took these photographs because, just two weeks ago, we were reading about higher political salaries. On 8 September, the Government announced a one-off adjustment of up to 9% for ministers and other political officeholders. The Prime Minister’s annual salary will rise from $2.2 million to $3.6 million, with his pledge to donate the increase for five years. (pmo.gov.sg) Today, 22 September, the headlines tell us that 4,620 workers were retrenched in the second quarter, the highest quarterly number since late 2020. Vacancies fell, and retrenched residents were taking longer to find work. (channelnewsasia.com, mom.gov.sg) These layoffs happened before the pay announcement. But reading the two sets of headlines a fortnight apart is still jarring. Singapore has the world’s highest-paid head of government. That makes the expectations attached to leadership especially high. (reuters.com) I understand the argument that competitive pay helps attract capable leaders. I also think we should bring the same urgency to protecting the prospects of capable people losing their jobs. Yes, total employment grew. That matters. But an expanding labour market offers limited comfort when your own job has disappeared. (ntuc.org.sg) For someone facing retrenchment, progress means finding another suitable role, earning enough to support their family and getting through the transition without exhausting their savings. That is the outcome I want us to measure as seriously as growth. If higher pay is an investment in better leadership, what should ordinary workers expect that investment to deliver? Standing at that newspaper rack, one thought stayed with me: A country’s success should be felt at the checkout, too.
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Uma Rudd Chia shared thisYesterday I shared the story of a headmaster who had 14 minutes to save his school. Today, this. Her name is Kopila Tamang. She is 20. The catastrophe took 17 members of her family. Her mother. Her siblings. Her grandmother. Her aunts. Her cousins. Her little brother survived. And suddenly, at 20, Kopila found herself becoming the person who had to be strong for him. This is why I am sharing The Himalayan Times' work this week. Numbers become frighteningly easy to scroll past. But there is a human being behind every number. A daughter. A brother. A parent. Someone's entire world. A mountain fell on a poor country. Please don't let Nepal disappear with the headlines. If you can help, the Singapore Red Cross Nepal appeal is funding food, clean water and humanitarian relief. Red Cross Singapore PayNow: S86CC0370ERF1 Reference: Nepal Floods Donate via Singapore Red Cross Credit: The Himalayan Times / Ravin Lama and team #Nepal #UnstoppableNepal #Humanity
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Uma Rudd Chia shared thisIf you could send yourself a postcard from 2036, what would you hope it says? I’m speaking tomorrow at The Futures Summit at Mandala Club, taking the 6 pm session: “A Postcard from 2036: The Future We Choose”. I spend a lot of time thinking about what AI makes possible. But the question I keep coming back to is: what do we actually want our lives to look like? What would we want to preserve? What would we be glad we changed? And what might we wish we’d paid more attention to while we still had the chance? Ten years feels far away until you realise we’re already making decisions that will shape it. In our businesses, in our homes, and in what we teach the next generation to value. Looking forward to exploring this together tomorrow. 📍 Mandala Club, Singapore 🗓️ Tuesday, 22 September | My session: 6 pm Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/dtfj2kXu If you’re attending, come say hello. #TheFuturesSummit #AI #TheFutureWeChoose
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Uma Rudd Chia shared thisA mountain fell on a country that could least afford it. Please don't look away. Over the next six days, I want to share a remarkable series of work from The Himalayan Times, led by my friend Ravin Lama and his team, telling the human stories behind the catastrophe in Nepal. This is the first. Headmaster Rajendra Dawadi had 14 minutes. A warning came. The flood was coming. He stopped classes, rang the bell, ordered more than 900 children to higher ground and turned back school buses still approaching. Then the water came. The school was devastated. The children survived. There are moments when leadership has nothing to do with titles, meetings or strategy. It is simply having the courage to make the call when other people's lives depend on it. The news cycle is moving on. Nepal can't. Please help if you can. Singapore Red Cross Nepal Floods Response: PayNow UEN: S86CC0370ERF1 Reference: Nepal Floods Red Cross Singapore Singapore Red Cross Nepal Floods appeal Credit: The Himalayan Times / Ravin Lama and team #Nepal #UnstoppableNepal #TheHimalayanTimes #Humanity
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Uma Rudd Chia reacted on this🔴 New Red Dot Matters. A Singaporean in his mid-40s lost his life savings. He's driving a taxi 15 hours a day trying to come back from it. We have systems to help people like him. But how many people actually know they exist? This week I write about Singapore's safety net, who it's missing, and why helping people feel secure enough to take risks is not a soft idea. It is a national strategy. 👇 https://lnkd.in/gcXYXu-gSingapore Has a Safety Net. But Do We Know How to Fall Into It?Singapore Has a Safety Net. But Do We Know How to Fall Into It?
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Uma Rudd Chia shared thisThis comes a little late, but better late than never. On 5 September, I had the pleasure of accompanying Mark Souza to the Young Founders School Gala 2026 at The Singapore EDITION. And I’m glad I went. I met some genuinely lovely people that night, including Tobias 'Toby' Berger and his beautifully animated, brilliant wife Michelle Berger, and heard more about the story behind Young Founders School and the work they’ve been doing over the last 10 years. What struck me was that this isn’t just about teaching young people entrepreneurship. It’s about giving them the confidence to build, try, fail, think for themselves and realise they don’t have to wait until they’re older to create something meaningful. Big shout-out to Billy Naveed, the founder, and the YFS team for what they’ve built and for their ambition to reach one million young founders. Ten years is a real milestone. And nights like this are a good reminder that sometimes the most important thing you can give a young person is simply the belief that they can start. #YFSGala2026 #RoadToOneMillion #10YearsOfYFS #YoungFounders #Entrepreneurship #Singapore
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Uma Rudd Chia shared this🔴 A new Red Dot Matters just dropped. Singapore has a safety net. But do we know how to fall into it? This one started with the story of a 46-year-old Singaporean who lost his life savings and is now driving a taxi up to 15 hours a day trying to rebuild. It made me ask a bigger question. We have ComCare. We have Social Service Offices. We have support schemes. But how many Singaporeans actually know what help is available, whether they qualify, or where to go before things become desperate? Especially the new vulnerable middle: people who have worked for decades, paid taxes, contributed to CPF, built careers and supported their families, then suddenly lose a job, a business, their savings or their financial security. We tell Singaporeans to take risks. 🚀 Build companies. Experiment. Reinvent themselves. Dare to fail. But you cannot build a nation of risk-takers if one bad fall can wipe you out. And this connects to my Red Dot Matters on ministerial pay couple of weeks back and Singapore's leadership pipeline. I argued for paying our ministers well. In last week's issue, I also argued that money isn't the only currency, and salary isn't the only way to reward people for serving. Agency is currency. Influence is currency. Purpose is currency. The ability to create meaningful change is currency. I reiterate this because I feel it is important. Perhaps security is currency too. Because if we want people to have the courage to take bigger risks, perhaps we first need to give them the confidence that they can survive the fall. 👇 Read the new Red Dot Matters and tell me what you think. 🔗 Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/gRktpMcJ #RedDotMatters #Singapore #ComCare #SocialSafetyNet #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Innovation #FutureOfSingaporeSingapore Has a Safety Net. But Do We Know How to Fall Into It?Singapore Has a Safety Net. But Do We Know How to Fall Into It?
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Uma Rudd Chia reacted on thisUma Rudd Chia reacted on thisUN-heard Jew Hatred Seems like it's a cool thing to hate the Jews in New York in these days. António Guterres in his final address before leaving office, admitted that he is blind. He said that Israel's offensive in Gaza produced a scale of death and destruction he had not seen in all his years as secretary-general. Really? Isn’t its surprising that he couldn’t see the scale of death and destruction in Ukraine? Hundreds of thousands (some estimate a million) of soldiers and civilians have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion, with total military casualties, including wounded, running far higher. How could he forget the Syrian civil war, in which under his watch, the death toll was at more than 500,000. What about Yemen, where a the war had caused 377,000 deaths by the end of 2021. Why don't he see Sudan, where 60,000 have been directly killed and some estimates of the wider war-related death toll are substantially higher? No, he does not see Ethiopia’s Tigray war, where estimates are approximately 600,000. And of course, how can he see Nigeria, where Christian advocacy organizations put the number of Christians killed by jihadist over the past decades in the tens of thousands, with some estimates approaching 80,000. Apparently, none of these tragedies produced a “scale of killing and destruction” comparable, in Guterres’s telling, to what he witnessed in Gaza. The obsession with the Jews and Israel has become the new pandemic and has spread far beyond the United Nations. French President Emmanuel Macron shares the same disease: he told the UN General Assembly: “Hamas has never been active in the West Bank.” An outrageous lie, as Hamas has murdered hundreds in Judea and Samaria. Then there is Erdoğan, whose Turkey murdered 1.5 million Armenians and occupies the northern Cyprus since 1974. Erdoğan has repeatedly conducted military operations inside both Syria and Iraq. Yet he accused Israel of possessing a “genocidal mindset that can never get enough of killing.” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva likewise used his UN address to accuse Israel of “genocide” in Gaza. What did Israel do to Brazilians? Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared before the same General Assembly that his government “condemns without qualification” what he described as the genocide that Netanyahu “continues to perpetrate” in Gaza. Jordan’s King Abdullah II went further, declaring: “This Israeli government’s expansionist appetite is now a regional threat.” He totally forgot the Black September and 10,000 palestinians killed by his father 56 years ago.
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Uma Rudd Chia reacted on thisUma Rudd Chia reacted on thisThis is how Alexandr Wang, Meta's Chief AI Officer, showed up to the company's biggest keynote of the year. Zuck paid $14.3B to recruit him. Muse, the AI agent his team built, beat ChatGPT's launch numbers. The share price jumped 11.3% in a day. By the end of the week, Meta was worth $234B more. A 16x return. Meanwhile, most companies are still debating whether jeans are ok on Fridays.
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Uma Rudd Chia liked thisThis fourth execution from The Himalayan Times stopped me for a different reason. “A holiday is not enough.” It remembers young Nepalis whose lives were lost and asks a much bigger question: What do we do with their memory? A memorial day matters. But remembering should mean more than taking a day off. It should mean remembering the people, what they hoped for, what they stood for, and the Nepal they wanted to build. And right now, that country is also trying to recover from an enormous catastrophe. Nepal needs more than our sympathy. It needs us not to forget. Over these six days I'm sharing the work of my friend Ravin Lama and his team at The Himalayan Times because good storytelling does something statistics cannot. It makes us stop. It makes us see. And sometimes, hopefully, it makes us act. To support Nepal through Singapore Red Cross: PayNow: S86CC0370ERF1 Reference: Nepal Floods Red Cross Singapore Nepal Floods Response Credit: The Himalayan Times / Ravin Lama and team #Nepal #TheHimalayanTimes #UnstoppableNepal
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Uma Rudd Chia reacted on thisUma Rudd Chia reacted on thisSomething very special happened on the plane yesterday. In the quietness of a red-eye, I sat there with my paint brush and little sketch book, capturing a moment that moved me. I was in my own world of shapes, shades and colours. Then I heard a quiet “excuse me” from behind. I turned around and saw the air stewardess looking down at my page. “Do you major in art?” she asked. “No”, I giggled, “I just draw for fun 😊” “Do you mind if I take a photo?” “Sure 🌟 ” She disappeared and came back a few minutes later with her phone. I shared with her how I like to draw because it allows me to slow down, to really see the world for all its wonderful details. It also got me reflecting on what it means to do what you love: 🌟 Because you love it, it’s not performative. It doesn’t matter if it turns out well or not. However.. 🌟 Because you love the process of doing it, you do more of it, and someway, somehow you get better at it. THEN 🌟 Because you get better at it - you, simply doing it, draws people to you (pun intended). People admire your love for what you do, and when you talk about it, you are saying everything you believe in. Maybe our challenge around ‘selling ourselves’ has something to do with this 🤔 Either we’re selling something we don’t believe in, or we’re doing things we don’t really love and we try to sell our work ‘logically’ but not ‘emotionally’. The scariest part - sometimes the person we keep trying to sell to is ourselves. Stuck in logical loops that are empty of passion. Let’s all work on doing one thing that we love! It doesn’t need to make us money, but it will certainly make us all richer in Life. #theoutliermind #judyliucoaching #dowhatyoulove #miracles #magic #somethingspecial #thispreciouslife #personaldevelopment #leadership
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Uma Rudd Chia liked thisUma Rudd Chia liked thisSometimes the most powerful lessons aren’t taught in a classroom, they’re built in a garage. These high school students are learning mechanics, engineering and problem-solving but they’re also learning something far more valuable: Skills become meaningful when they are used to help someone else. They take old cars that might otherwise be forgotten, restore them, and help put reliable transportation into the hands of mothers who need it. That’s more than fixing cars, that’s fixing lives, one vehicle at a time. Imagine if more education was designed around this principle: Learn something. Build something. Solve something. Give something back. That’s the kind of education the AI era should be creating.
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Uma Rudd Chia reacted on thisUma Rudd Chia reacted on thisMy two identities clash again. Do I go represent Singapore at Asian Championships in Mongolia in December (and rank in top 10 and get humbled on a global stage) or keep launching new features on anthropologic - eg meme analysis for the boomers so we can break into top 5 of product hunt? Please subscribe to anthropologic.quilt.ai and Anurag Banerjee will show you how to make the meme below Quilt.AI
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Uma Rudd Chia liked thisUma Rudd Chia liked thisOne overseas client said yes. Then they became the whole market. James Miles at Talent Hero on the Vietnam "say yes" trap when you expand abroad. It looks like traction. It can also be concentration risk wearing a win costume. More overseas expansion stories in Melbourne and Sydney. Dates below. * * * * * * * ☕ Startups Coffee o'Clock Thu 1 Oct · 8:00-9:00am AEST · Tarts Anon, Richmond https://luma.com/s2ft4v14 🌏 Mistakes Founders Make Going International · Melbourne Tue 6 Oct · 6:00-8:30pm AEST · Cremorne https://luma.com/jab7nby4 🌏 Mistakes Founders Make Going International · Sydney Wed 7 Oct · 6:00-8:30pm AEST · Haymarket https://luma.com/7kyv7mfp Free for AU founders and operators. Grab a seat, then stay for the room. Brought together by 8 Circle and Singapore Global Network (SGN): panels, workshops and meet ups for startup founders and operators in Melbourne and Sydney. 📅 Full James Miles Talent Hero 8 Circle Singapore Global Network (SGN) Zavior Glenn Tan Aidan Chan Donny McGregor 🙋🏻♂️ Sean Teh Vidushan Premathiratne, CFA Uma Rudd Chiatour: https://lu.ma/zavior
Experience
Education
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MIT Sloan Executive Education
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Completed the Generative AI Business Sprint — an intensive executive programme from MIT Sloan School of Management and MIT CSAIL. Studied the strategic, operational, and ethical implications of generative AI for business leaders. Applied frameworks directly to brand strategy, creative automation, and AI-native marketing systems across my ventures. This wasn't theory. It was ammunition.
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Licenses & Certifications
Publications
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THE SPOTTED ZEBRA
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
See publicationTHE USER GUIDE TO TURN YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CHARACTERISTICS INTO YOUR GREATEST SECRETS FOR SUCCESS
When you’re born into this world, you aren’t born knowing you are different, till someone points it out. And makes a bigger deal of it than he or she needs to.
Uma Rudd Chia was different for a few reasons. She had clinical ADHD which was only diagnosed when she was sixteen, because of a tragedy—but even when she found out, she desperately tried to keep it a secret because there…THE USER GUIDE TO TURN YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CHARACTERISTICS INTO YOUR GREATEST SECRETS FOR SUCCESS
When you’re born into this world, you aren’t born knowing you are different, till someone points it out. And makes a bigger deal of it than he or she needs to.
Uma Rudd Chia was different for a few reasons. She had clinical ADHD which was only diagnosed when she was sixteen, because of a tragedy—but even when she found out, she desperately tried to keep it a secret because there was no worse crime than being different. The reality is we are all different. But we live in a society and go through an education system that defines what normal looks like. This may prepare you to be an obedient member of society—one that’s predictable and easy to control. But does it make you the best version of you? -
10 Things Brands Could Do To Survive A Crisis
See publicationThe Amazon Kindle Bestseller describe by Singapore Straits Times as the playbook for brand during the pandemic. When brands are under quarantine, all your marketing and communications efforts have come to a halt. So what do you do? Just hope it's a phase? Wait for it to blow over? Try and minimize the damage? Well, I put my 18 over years of experience as an award-winning Creative Director, global keynote speaker on creativity and comms specialist to write a book under 24-hours, over 4 days. I…
The Amazon Kindle Bestseller describe by Singapore Straits Times as the playbook for brand during the pandemic. When brands are under quarantine, all your marketing and communications efforts have come to a halt. So what do you do? Just hope it's a phase? Wait for it to blow over? Try and minimize the damage? Well, I put my 18 over years of experience as an award-winning Creative Director, global keynote speaker on creativity and comms specialist to write a book under 24-hours, over 4 days. I wrote it with great urgency because I believe success can be had even in a recession economy. And there’s no better time than now for your brand to do well by doing good if you are willing to pivot and think creatively "inside the box” of your quarantined limitations.
Success is not about the right circumstance. It's about the right mindset - and that's just my message on chapter one. There are 10 exciting chapters with great examples and actionable steps that you can immediately apply to change the tide in your favor. Now is the time to read this book and rise from the ashes. -
Hey Pastor! Your Church is Going Out of Business
Green House
See publicationThe world around us is changing faster than we can imagine. Everything is different from the days of our childhood, except the education system and the way we are running church. The local church is still observing a style of worship that is set hundreds of years back. This is more true of charismatic churches.
It’s time for a revival. And the word for revival today is disruption. In order for revival to happen, churches needs to innovate in a way that will affect the spirit, soul and…The world around us is changing faster than we can imagine. Everything is different from the days of our childhood, except the education system and the way we are running church. The local church is still observing a style of worship that is set hundreds of years back. This is more true of charismatic churches.
It’s time for a revival. And the word for revival today is disruption. In order for revival to happen, churches needs to innovate in a way that will affect the spirit, soul and body of any individual who walks into your local church, be it a Christian or an unchurched person. This books is written because I believe every community needs a strong local church that is relevant. I’m hoping this book would give church leaders the right tools to get started on the path of effectiveness. And I hope this book sparks a much needed disruption and revival in the local church. -
Reading PANTS™ Phonics
RuddRudd Pte Ltd
Honors & Awards
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Cannes Lion
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Creative Circle Awards
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D&AD Pencils — including Copy Craft
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Dun & Bradstreet Business Eminence Awards — Best Start-Up 2023 (KVUR)
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Effies
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Gerety Creative Awards — Finalist, Integrated Communications (Hilton APAC)
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One Show Silver — IMDA Art Is Everywhere
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OpenAI Beta Tester — among 200 global creatives invited pre-ChatGPT
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SME Business Awards — Fastest Moving Company 2022 (KVUR)
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Shell Environment Award
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Singapore Advertising Hall of Fame
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Spikes Asia
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The BrandLaureate Best Brand of the Year Award 2024-2025 — Brand Icon Leadership
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The BrandLaureate Best Brand of the Year Award 2024-2025 — Outstanding SME
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• Founders Live Singapore — Winner (Oh My Strawberry)
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Languages
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English
Full professional proficiency
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Bahasa Indonesia
Full professional proficiency
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Hebrew
Native or bilingual proficiency
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Bahasa melayu
Full professional proficiency
Organizations
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Association of Professional Speakers
Member
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Keynote Women Speakers
Member
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hyper island
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Vinai Prakash
What most people miss in video creation is the speed at which they can turn ideas into finished products. With the rise of AI video editing tools, professionals in Singapore can script, edit, enhance, and publish faster than ever before. Imagine having the capability to streamline your editing process with smart algorithms that can suggest cuts, transitions, and even improve audio quality. This not only saves countless hours but also allows for a level of creativity that can enhance your project beyond initial expectations. Consider this: AI tools can analyze your content and provide feedback on engagement trends based on historical data. This means your videos are not just edited faster; they are crafted with a better understanding of your audience’s preferences. The right AI tools can elevate your editing skills while minimizing the tedious tasks that bog you down. Are you harnessing these advancements to their full potential in your content creation? Want the full walkthrough in class? Details: https://lnkd.in/gqpYrGAG #AIVideo #ContentCreation #VideoEditing #Innovation
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Nelson Lim
One of the hardest problems in government and other large organizations isn’t necessarily a lack of talent, money, or good ideas. It’s decision bandwidth. When too many problems have to move upward through the organization for attention, approval, and action, you create what Li Hongyi calls an “intellectual traffic jam.” This TEDxSingapore talk presents an interesting alternative: small, cross-functional teams with direct exposure to frontline problems, clear decision rights, the ability to experiment quickly, and a mechanism for scaling what works. The important distinction is between execution and discovery. Command-and-control structures can be extremely effective when we already know what needs to be done. But when the organization is trying to discover problems and develop new solutions, pushing more decision-making closer to where the information and expertise actually live can dramatically expand its problem-solving capacity. I think there are useful lessons here not only for government, but also for universities, hospitals, multinational corporations, and other large institutions. I’m increasingly interested in this as part of a broader large-scale decision and execution system: how do we increase organizational attention, improve decision throughput, empower distributed problem-solving, and still maintain enough coordination to execute at scale? #OrganizationalDesign #DecisionMaking #Execution #PublicSectorInnovation #Singapore https://lnkd.in/e_2SBb8Y
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Owen Sia
2025: Front row seat to Singapore's science Last year I wrote press releases about how too much screen time as a toddler affects your brain as a teenager. How a cancer drug might save vision for people with AMD. How sleep patterns in childhood can prevent obesity. How scientists identified the stem cells that drive colorectal cancer. Singapore Scientific Conference 2025 where I got to meet Nobel laureate Steven Chu and hear him talk about AI, energy, demographics, materials science - basically the future. Coordinated media for AI tools predicting liver cancer recurrence, immunotherapy breakthroughs, personalised treatments for rare cancers. I'm not the scientist. I'm not the researcher. I'm the comms guy at A*STAR who translates their work so journalists can explain it to everyone else. It's a privilege. I get front-row access to innovation happening in Singapore, then figure out how to make it make sense. Here's what made 2025 different though. I did most of this work with AI. Not the "prompt once and post" kind. More like having a sparring partner who helps me think through: - How to frame a complex cancer research finding - Which angle journalists would actually care about - How to explain why a drug originally for cancer might help with eye disease - Whether this press release makes sense to someone who isn't a molecular biologist It helped me do better work faster. Draft clearer releases. Pitch smarter stories. Think through positioning. I built workflows with n8n to automate media monitoring. Used Claude to help structure scientific narratives. Tested different ways to explain the same research until it clicked. The science stayed accurate. The translation just got better. That's the approach I'm bringing to NextBigLeap AI this year - helping people make sense of when and how AI actually improves their work. Always happy to chat if you're figuring this out for your own processes. 2025 was a good year. Let's see what 2026 brings. 🚀
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Ives Tay
⚠️ AI literacy for seniors – inspiring, but not risk-free Seniors like Madam Lim Siew Gin and Mr Victor Lim are learning Gen AI – spotting deepfakes, generating poems with ChatGPT, and navigating new tools confidently. It’s heartening. But let’s be real: scammers are studying the same curriculum. Every prompt that helps a senior craft a birthday poem could also help a bad actor create a persuasive phishing message. Every workshop teaching “how to spot deepfakes” could be mirrored by scammers refining their deception. ✅ Teaching 'how' to use AI is not enough. ✅ We must teach 'how to think with AI': * Why does this AI produce this answer? * Who designed it and what interests does it serve? * How to cross-check, compare, and verify before trusting? Workshops alone won’t suffice. True digital inclusion must prepare seniors – and all citizens – to outthink, not just out-click, the scammers. We can modernize our ageing society with AI – but only if we teach discernment, not just skills.
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Melissa Chan
“After our meeting yesterday, Yuan and I almost had a brain explosion.” Memang lah happy, when your client says that. On a serious note, this is what clarity looks like. Most businesses are way too hidden. They have all the boxes ticked; however, they lack in Brand Positioning, which makes them too hidden. And while they are figuring the jalan, competitors are already overtaking them. This is reality. Kalau tak jaga of your positioning, your competitors will do it for you. Once your position has been set by the public, susah to turn back or change. PR is educating and helping the public to understand who you are and why you matter. #MelPR #PublicRelations #BrandPositioning #Brandowners #Testimony
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NG SIN LIM
Treating and Nurturing Writers Well By: Ng Sin Lim (Chief Editor, NGSINLIM Publishing) I often remind myself: first I am a reader, then an editor, and only after that a publisher. At the end of the day, publishing exists for readers. They are invisible as individuals, but without them, our industry would not survive. Over the years, I have listened to many writers talk about their publishing journeys. Some were exploited when they were newcomers—low royalties, endless delays. Others, even when self-publishing, still faced unreasonable waits. A friend once told me his book was promised for his birthday but was delayed for two years. I stayed quiet, worried I might fall into the same trap as a publisher. Why do delays happen? Sometimes it is understaffed editors, poor communication, or funding problems. Rarely the printer—Malaysia’s printers are efficient. That’s why now, whenever I accept a manuscript, my first question is: “When do you want your book to be published?” Once we agree, I block my schedule to avoid overlapping projects. The truth is: publishing is both culture and business. Editors are the bridge, readers are the true bosses (consumers), and publishers shoulder the risk. Selling books is not easy—books are low-priced products, and selling many copies still may not feed one full-time editor. That leads to the old question: how can publishers survive? Many say the future is IP. The late Ping Hsin-Tao once built an “empire” at Crown Publishing through Qiong Yao’s novels as IP. Yet in his biography, he admitted it all “ended quickly.” It shows us that IP may not be the final solution—but it is a strategy worth studying and adapting. As publishers, our responsibility is not just printing books, but nurturing writers, respecting readers, and innovating business models. If we fail in this balance, culture suffers. If we succeed, good content will always find its way.
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