The Future of Singapore

I was talking to my wife the other day about the culture in Singapore, about the way people think, and how we have a culture of meritocracy with a smack of elitism. My thoughts? Well, in the past, when we were a small and young nation needing to quickly get up on our feet, we needed a group of strong leaders pulling us forward (setting the right direction) with a big base of obedient followers doing the common work. This was probably the birth of the scholarship scheme, and how we started down the track that brought us to where we are today. From a newly independent nation struggling to make an identity for herself, we have progressed to become a world-renown regional hub.

But what now? While the current system may have been adequate in bringing us up to speed, now that we have made a name for ourselves, how do we carry on? Our focus on education and developing our human resource has brought us here, yet in the next 10 years, the other countries in the region, as well as cities in China and India, would probably catch up. Given another 20 years, China and India would probably progress far ahead of where we will be if we carry on down this road.

What we need now is not a group of strong leaders and a large group of obedient followers. What we need now is to find a way to create a new niche for ourselves. As a small country without natural resources, we are disadvantaged and this will show in the next 10 to 20 years. What we need to do is to find a niche that only a small nation like us is able to do. We need to find for ourselves a purpose in our existence in this world, leveraging on our size, turning our disadvantage into our edge.

So what should this edge be? Let's see what our strong leaders can come up with.