Urban greenery in Singapore

One doesn't hear much about Singapore's urban greenery, but I find it one of the more spectacular things here. Singapore is fortunate to be at the equator and blessed with lush greenery. But in making Singapore a world city, they could have easily de-emphasised that. Instead they've beautifully incorporated that greenery into so many aspects of the urbanity. By far the best of the cities I've seen. One of the best parts of this design - forest walks that are at a height above the ground so you can see the trees from a height. Sometimes called canopy walks.
We went on one such today, a zig-zag of an elegantly designed metal walkway that coursed through some forested areas. At multiple points you have an option to get off the walkway onto a hiking trail on the ground below.
Design in Singapore in general is truly of the highest standard.

The spectacular Hendersen Waves walkway

Epiphytes - plants growing on a tree. They're everywhere in Singapore

Four shots to get it right :-)

Barbecue at East Coast Park

Seun on the right is Nigerian and a natural dancer and bonded with Vibhat. He's now Vibhat's dance godfather. Zaigham from Pakistan is on the right

China, Japan and Vietnam !

The MPA group's outing to East Coast Park in Singapore for a barbecue. The MPA class has gotten distributed between lots of electives so we don't meet much as a class, so this was very good to connect with people. And Priya and Vibhat joined and got introduced to my classmates which was very nice.
Most photos by Anton Arcilla , from our class

Vibhat is going to school !!! Its called the Global Indian International School. Its about 5 km from home and Priya is currently dropping him and picking him up. He did very well on the admission test. But now he has a challenge - Hindi ! We chose that as his language, but he hasn't learnt much of it at his previous school. Neither Priya and I know much.
He was quite sad and stressed on his first day and cried three times, he told us. And the second day one time, so getting better :-). His previous school was the Earth School Montessori was very .. Montessorian (calm, quiet, teachers are very sweet) and its a bit of an adjustment for him to a mainstream school and this one in particular. Poor kiddo!

"Prof, no one is reading you"

Prof. Biswas with Prof. Eduardo Araral, who chaired the talk

We had a talk on 23rd September by Prof. Asit Biswas. Prof. Biswas is very well-respected in the water sector and a recipient of the World Water Prize. I'm taking a course on water policy and governance with him (and Dr. Tortajada). Its quite demanding and we're having to do a lot of writing  which is proving unexpectedly challenging, but I think I'm improving!

Dr. Biswas' talk was on  academia creating impact by writing in the popular media, more specifically writing op-eds. Op-ed = 'opposite-editorial'.  the space in newspapers given to experts and others to give their independent views on matters of public importance. They're called op-eds because they're often run next to the newspaper's own opinion pieces, the editorials. While the talk was aimed at academics, the points are very relevant for people from the NGO sector too.

Dr. Biswas talked of the increasing irrelevance of academic publishing for public policy and impact. Quoting from the flyer publicising the talk (http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/OP-Eds_Writing-Publishing-and-Impacts.pdf): "Latest statistics indicate that 80% of papers in Humanities do not attract even a single citation. Also, if a paper is cited, it does not mean the person citing it has read the whole paper fully. We estimate an average paper in Humanities is read by no more than 10 people".

Dr. Biswas did an op-ed in the Straits Times, (http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/prof-no-one-is-reading-you) the main newspaper in Singapore on this very topic - "Prof, no one is reading you". Apparently, it has become the most read article of the Straits Times with 65000 online shares, 7000 tweets and even translated into other languages. So it would seem the topic resonated strongly with many people.

Other points from the talk:
- Dr. Biswas talked about Project Syndicate. Quoting from the Straits Times article above: " One effective model is Project Syndicate, a non-profit organisation, which distributes commentary by the world's thought leaders to more than 500 newspapers comprising 300 million readers in 154 countries. Any commentary accepted by Project Syndicate may be translated into up to 12 other languages and then distributed globally to the entire network.". Prof Biswas has now an agreement with Project Syndicate to distribute four of his op-eds each year.

- Ministers and policy makers pay attention to what gets published. A typical method of doing this is for the Ministers' staff to create a roundup of all relevant news across key media outlets every day. Prof Biswas cited examples from his personal knowledge from Canada, India and Qatar of Ministers who do this

- Examples of recent impact from op-eds:
    An article he wrote on Think Tanks in the "Diplomat" magazine (http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/the-rise-of-asias-think-tanks/)  was shared by the wife of the Prime Minister of Singapore on her FB page, and presumably reached the PM too
    An op-ed in the Straits Times on the haze (http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/to-tackle-haze-win-over-the-indonesian-public) got a response from the Singapore Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Vivian Balakrishnan, who wrote back that he liked it and that his minstry is seriously looking at the suggestions.

- Media needs a peg. There was once a request from a Chinese publication for an article on drought, followed by a urgent communication that rains had started and unless they moved really quickly the article could not be run until the next drought!

- Media needs you to take a stand. No 'on the the one hand, on the other hand' business. The job of the editor is to 'sell newspaper' so if you want to get published you have to be aligned with that. Being controversial does not hurt! Winston Churchill said: "You have enemies? Good. That means you have stood up for something in your life"

- Media's deadlines are significantly more demanding than for academic publication and you need to be prepared for that. Prof. Biswas has stayed up late nights on occasion to do what was needed to get a piece out in time to a media outlet.

- A corollary  is that media will occasionally edit what you say, even without asking. Sometimes that results in significant distortion of what you meant. Again, something you have to accept and be prepared for if you want to play the public impact game. 

- Invest your time in developing relationships with good newspaper editors and journalists. They get a lot of submissions and reject 95% of them. If you have a relationship with them, they will trust you. Occasionally have lunch/coffee with them to understand their challenges,what they need, what they're looking for.

- One way to get their attention in the first place is to be active on social media. At least 300 media personalities from many countries follow Prof. Biswas on LinkedIn. 

- Op-ed sizes are coming down and nowadays they are looking for around 650-700 words. You must be able to make your point in that space

- Nowadays Prof Biswas writes an average of one op-ed a week.

- Prof. Biswas writes a lot op-eds with graduate students, which gives them visibility and training and many of them go on to do a lot of such writing on their own. He expressed some disappointment with the general graduate student body at the LKY School. Students do not seem to be interested in taking up this valuable opportunity to get trained in writing op-eds and thus improving public policy

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Addenda: An article in the Guardian that nicely builds on some of the points here

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/sep/04/academics-are-being-hoodwinked-into-writing-books-nobody-can-buy

A recent followup article by Prof Biswas
http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/prof-no-one-is-using-your-ideas 

Photos

Deep fried beans, Egg-and-tomato

Good Thai Tom Yam (vegetarian) soup

Stained with dragon-fruit juice

Using a Matrix sim card

User experience with using a Matrix SIM for foreign travel.
When I moved to Singapore, I brought with me a Matrix SIM card. While my experience leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, I'm not a fan of random badmouthing of companies that I see on the web. Below is my experience. Its only 1 persons' experience, and its spiced up a little bit for drama. There is also negligence on my part that contributed to the final outcome.

I had bought a plan for 1000 free minutes calling to India at approximately 2,500/- Rs. I expected I would spend this amount on the card. The final amount I spent over 3 weeks is upward of 19,000/- Rs.
In India I did not have knowledge of Singapore calling rates as also data usage, so I was not able to evaluate the plan I took properly. After coming to Singapore, I got busy in settling in at the school, visa matters etc. here and didn't pay sufficient attention to understanding how the phone charges were going. I realized too late that the data and local calling charges on the card were very expensive. I probably even crossed the 1000 Min limit on calling India.

The critical problem is that there is no convenient way to track usage (local calling, free minutes to India, data). This is mindbogglingly bad. To be on this kind of a plan, and not to give people a way to know where exactly they are in their usage is such a bad customer experience, that it crosses the line to where it merits an investigation by the government. After 2 weeks, and multiple phone calls to customer support, I started getting SMSes and recorded phone messages telling me what my balance was, but even then it didn't tell me the breakup for various services. And why did it start only 2 weeks into my trip ?
When one has some number of free minutes but doesn't know when it going to get over, its very problematic. Its hardly practical to keep noting the duration of every call you make.
The other thing that wasn't nice was that local calling rates were very expensive. Again its something that you can't evaluate very well back in India. The calling cards seem to be set up so that you get attracted by the free India calling minutes and then get screwed by the local calls.

The Matrix experience is quite schizophrenic. Any aspect of their service that has to do with generating revenue is extraordinarily good. Any aspect that might lead to revenue erosion is extraordinarily bad.
On the plus side:
1.) When I first contacted a salesperson in Bangalore, he was very knowledgeable, pleasant and courteous. He was also extremely responsive and reliable in follow-up to get me to purchase the card. 
2.) They ran ads on TV and cable sometime back. I found those extraordinarily entertaining and well-made. They also have a cute little box in which they give you the SIM card and usage instructions. These guys remind me of Indigo, the airline, for their branding and marketing ideas. And check out their website.
3.) When I had some trouble getting data service on my phone, the customer service was extraordinarily response in giving me detailed instructions and following up with me over a period of 2 hours until I got it resolved.
4.) The service worked well and call quality etc was all good. I would give them good marks for this.
5.)The most annoying thing is that its remarkably easy to get a phone connection here in Singapore. All it takes is your passport and you can get a SIM at any number of convenience stores around the city. But because I had the convenient Matrix SIM available, I postponed getting a local Singapore SIM. I also postponed setting up WiFi in the apartment properly so I could use WiFi data. These really cost me dear.

Two other people that I consulted about Matrix told me that they had the same kind of experience. That's a total of 3/3 bad customer experiences! 

If you are going ahead with Matrix anyways, things to keep in mind:
Of course the basic thing is that you have to keep an eagle eye on your call usage!
Understand the local calling rate. Check whether the local calling rate applies to incoming too.
Know your data usage. I had an unlimited connection back in India, so didn't really know how much was my average usage. Found out after I came here and paid through my nose, that it is much higher than I thought!

Note: Happy to get feedback from Matrix and hear their side of it. I did send them the substance of the above as a customer complaint and didn't hear back (Oh, yeah, that's another thing, they opened three customer complaints as a result of my calls, and I never heard back on any of them).


Their ads were so good, I will link them in here :-)