A conversation with Associate Professor Jawn Lim. A design futurist at the Singapore Institute of Technology. He holds an Advance Certificate in Management, Innovation and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Doctor of Design from Harvard University.
Interviewed by: Peter Hayward
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Peter Hayward: Doing the work we do. We can often imagine foresightful individuals, foresightful organizations even but what about a foresightful country? Can we imagine it? I suppose if we tried, it would be something like people at the top level of the country use foresight, demonstrate foresight, embody foresight. And then it filters all the way down through the whole of the country. To the people, to the children, to everyone who uses foresight. Turns out. We don't necessarily have to imagine a place like that. It might well exist. Hi. I'm Peter Hayward and I'm your host for Futurepod today?
Jawn Lim: We see it as a team sport. We look at futures as a systems wide innovation that we need to adopt. And I'm so glad that our founding father (Lee Kuan Yew) and government leaders are already very future forward. It's very comforting. It's very encouraging to be Singaporean in a time such as this. We've seen them successfully lead us out of the pandemic. We see them lead us out (from being a) fishing village (and) poverty that we had in 1965 up to where we are today. And we have full confidence in the next generation of leaders, my children and those in primary school, to guide us to even brighter future.
Peter Hayward: That's Associate Professor Jawn Lim who is a Design Futurist and an Innovation consultant. He's on the faculty at the Singapore Institute of Technology. He's a board advisor to Singapore's Polytechnic Media Art and Design school. And he's the Chief Design Officer at the Singapore Productivity Center.
Welcome to Future Pod, Jawn.
Jawn Lim: Hi. Nice to see you or hear you at least Peter.
Peter Hayward: Thanks mate. First question Jawn. The story question. What is Jawn Lim story? How did you get involved with the Futures and Foresight community?
Jawn Lim: Well to start with I guess I'm always interested in designing the future. Not just hoping for it to happen the way I want it to but being an active agent in doing so. Whether it be my own future or that of my community or my I would even say my little tiny city, state and nation of Singapore. I think from a very young age, there's always been this desire to. Planning or designing scenarios including architecture or urban environments all the way to, even the products we use, the lifestyles we have and all that. So it's always been on my mind. I can't really point to a specific time, a date that yeah it's been there. And because there was no such thing as a futures degree in Singapore. So I took a degree in Architecture. I guess that was what I thought was one of the last Renaissance courses that allowed you to study History as well as Design and Engineering and Science. And so I did that. And I found myself always designing buildings that nobody could really build. However that was a start. And lo and behold, several years later, I ended up working for someone who had the same complaint - Frank Geary in Los Angeles - they said his buildings can't be built. But he builds them anyway yeah. So that's really brief introduction.
Peter Hayward: So was it always in the kind of background that's where you wanted to end up? Or was it something that you drifted into?
Jawn Lim: I think I've always been interested in something to do with scenario planning as well as design. I chanced upon futures a little bit more when I was living in LA in about 2002 about 20 years ago. And I bumped into a concept artist from Hollywood named Christian Lorenz Scheurer. He had an exhibition at this little gallery called Gallery Nucleus. And I was chatting with him and I was like, “Wow it's amazing what you're drawing. I can see the visions that you're positing and what you're thinking through. And I go, Oh, how do you do it?” Then he started explaining his methodology, how he would look at near future technologies and different societal anxieties and combine them together. He came up with paintings like procession of refugees and things like that. So it was quite interesting. And then I asked him, “So Christian, aren't you afraid that if I learned everything that you've taught me and I do it and I steal everything that you have that you'll be out of a job?” And he in his very gentle and sweet reply, he said, “Please go ahead.” And I was like Wow!, that he's really generous about his knowledge. Then he says, “If you're that good and I should be out of a job, I'll be happy to be out of a job.”
Then he introduced me to several of his concept design friends from Hollywood. So Mark Gunner, James Clyne, all these folks who work with James Cameron and Steven Spielberg on some of the sets and worlds that they've designed. And of course I chance upon the work of Alex McDowell and other production designers, and I began to take it more from a design angle instead of say a pure narrative angle. And so it was very interesting to learn how the project that Alex McDowell was on in Minority Report was actually designed through discussions at a think tank before the movie script was written. So that was very interesting. And I learned about that (think tank) actually through the late William Mitchell at MIT who was the head of Architectural program then. And I began to think that this whole thing about Julian Bleecker and Alex McDowell would probably be the, I guess the leaders in Design Fictions, was very intriguing to me. But I was more interested in not just looking at movie production or just provocative artifacts from the future, but I was interested in that translation from that what David Kirby calls “Dietetic Prototypes” to reality. And that translational bit is what I'm very interested in. Even though the poetic side is really fun as well, but I guess I'm interested in that area (of translation).
Peter Hayward: With your move into the whole Fiction and Image of the Future idea, was that something that came out of that or is again was Science Fiction and its portrayal in media and so forth? Was that present for you at a young age or something you've moved into later in life?
Jawn Lim: I think it's been there since a really young age. With all the doodles and sketches of things that can be and would be. Those were my very early untrained eyes trying to make a critical commentary on say, even my little country of Singapore, right? Some of my listeners would know that Singapore's really a tiny country where its the 20th smallest country in the world but with one of the highest GDPs. It's embarrassing to say how rich a country we are, but, our founding father in 1965, when we gained independence from Malaysia, was a visionary. Although he won't call himself a futurist, but I would say that he has set the course for many of us. And how we think about our city, our lives, and how we plan for it. We are seldom talking about just today. We're always looking at 20, 30 years out or even further. Way back then in ‘65, the challenges were always about housing and education and there were certain ideas that were so revolutionary at that time that many people say it would fail.
For instance bilingualism. So they (the government) would say we have to have English as a first language because it is the language of trade but then we'll also need to know our mother tongue too. Whether it be Mandarin or Tamil or Malay, we would need to know what our roots are culturally. That was really bold and yes, the country has pushed forward with that. Clearly several of us are not as talented in two languages. But many are. And it's been a real delight growing up in Singapore. Knowing that there's always change. There's always something new that they're building that's pushing the boundaries. Everything from even the Marina Bay Sands Hotel that, or is designed by Moshe Safdie. It is iconic (part of) Singapore with that huge infinity pool on the top that connects three towers. That wouldn't have been possible somewhere else. I think it's Singapore with its foresight, with its planning, with its desire to be shaping the future and designing it, not just the urbanscape, but really moving way beyond the norm constantly. And so that's where I grew up and I'm back here now. But we're always thinking of the future. We're always planning for the future, whether it be at URA (Urban Development Authority) or even if I may add we are launching three digital banks which is very rare in most markets that will address different needs. Imagine banks without branches and physical offices interfaces with customers, right? And so the country's constantly pushing forward designing its own future, almost designing its own fate in that sense. So that's what I'm so excited about here.
Peter Hayward: What was your parents' attitude to the future? Clearly you are a person who's very interested in it, and obviously you're saying Lee Kuan Yew was a visionary. Can you explain how your parents framed the journey of Singapore and of course your journey too?
Jawn Lim: So I think from my parents' generation, it's always about giving up your individual goals for the greater goal of your family or your country. They would say, Okay, we'll have to stick to this job even if it doesn't work. But we have to build this nation together. So we have a National Anthem, but we also have National Day songs. And there's a phrase that goes, “We built a nation strong and free. Reaching out together in peace and harmony”, and you would think, Wow! That that has been drawn into my head. And so my parents' generation would do that sacrificially. Stick to one job and push forward as much as they can with the little that they do. They do realize at a very early stage, that change will be a constant where we grew up, it does not even look like that anymore. There were little villages. They're all gone. We've got one tiny little village called Kampung (Buangkok) which means village in Malay. There's one left in the main island of Singapore and several in some offshore islands, but really tiny. We are moving ahead so fast that my parents’ Singapore is very different from my Singapore.
They knew that they had to give up a lot in order to build what we have today in our future that they couldn't really envision entirely. But they knew that it was a place of freedom, a place where a socialist democracy, (that) would lead us out of our fishing village, poverty state, into a first world state. So that was from my parents' generation and I'm so proud of them and what they've done, including the leaders in my country. I know this sounds really strange when we say, “Oh, I'm so proud of my government.” But I really am because they are very forward looking. They're planning and not just typical, like projections as in today, as it should be tomorrow, but calculating all the risks that it would entail and moving forward as best as they could because if we didn't, we would be left behind. And that was the mantra that stuck with us. You don't change, you don't improve, you don't plan for the future, you'll be left behind. And so that's what my parents grew up with and I think still holds similarly to our generation, but we are given a lot more leeway to try stuff now. We're no longer talking about housing and education. We're talking about other issues, digital currencies, or even digital twins and metaverses that would help a very tiny landlocked island to scale beyond our dimensions. So that's from my parents to me.
Peter Hayward: And could you speculate on perhaps the generations coming after you about what's their sense of the future and their responsibility towards it?
Jawn Lim: I think that there's been a concerted effort by the government to promote Design Thinking for even primary school children. So primary school kids between the age of six to twelve, they're being asked, “So what kind of future do you want? How do you feel about this particular people group?” They beginning to empathize at a very young age. And this is against the backdrop of standardized testing that Singaporeans are really good at, as you would know. Like even our math syllabus is being exported to America and known as the Singapore Math System. By the way, we've abandoned that math system already. We're onto the next one.
Yes, I would like to share that I think the future generations really it's really exciting to look at them and they're really empowered to make more creative decisions. I'll give you one for instance, at the recent Hokkien Huay Kuan which is like the gathering of the Hokkien speaking community primary schools, there are five of them. Last year they were given the challenge of designing something for the Covid situation. So these 10 year olds were thinking this through. One of the winning ideas was this UV sanitization light for killing germs placed in the elevators. The elevators will be finished out with more reflective surfaces so that whenever people leave the elevators, they would disinfect the elevator with the UV light. And when people walked in, it is just a simple motion sensor. If they walked in, all the lights switch off all the UV light. That came from 10 year olds! So it's encouraging to see that they're able to, again, empathize with the cleaning lady who has a hard time disinfecting the buttons every two hours at the peak of Covid to designing a possible scenario of never needing people to do that manually and yet killing all the germs or 99% of the germs without spraying things, simply by using UV lights. So I share that one example because it's so brilliant the students from this primary school called Ai Tong, and they're so forward looking. So yes, I think the future generations is very empowered and creative and I would say empathetic for the future. Them, that's this whole idea of future me, right? Like future personas. I think they're ready for it. Even at the ripe old age of 10 years old.
Peter Hayward: Thanks Jawn. Can you explain to the listeners a concept or philosophy or framework that is central to how you do your work?
Jawn Lim: Because of my own background in Architecture I enjoy looking at things in terms of systems. If you look at a building at walls and HVAC systems and spaces and lighting, those are different systems. But then if I abstract them into, say business terms, they would be your supply chain and your logistics and operations. But abstract them further into futures and then you realize, oh, those are your artifacts from the future, or your signals or your trends, strong or weak trends, and distinguishing drivers from what is local, locally impactful to global drivers. All kinds of I guess frameworks that I work with always have this architectural metaphor within it. So in that sense it'll be like an architectural fictions to me.
But yeah, that's how I look at things and so it's been interesting in using that to say examine the future of design or the future of education. Recently in the Speculative Futures chapter in Singapore, we ran a very private session, a session on the future of politics where some folks figured out in a very calm political climate of Singapore that we might not even need politicians anymore. And what would that look like? Because if all the policies that we wanted to run could grow and mature over time with a certain algorithmic input, will we still need politicians? So what would the world of politics look like without the personalities of politicians? And so again, using that same kind of architectural metaphor framework to look at worlds that need to be held up by some of these speculations, if you would, and looking at even topics like the future of retail, the future of pork. In Singapore we have a lot of Muslim countries around us and Muslim friends here who cannot take pork. But then what is the future of pork importing and supply chain in Southeast Asia if those forces existed and (other) conditions determine the amount of demand and supply. So very exciting times! Looking at all these topics chatting with fellow futurists like Luke Tay who's a food futurist in Singapore, and also with Alex Fergnani who has an amazing YouTube list of videos. It's so fun to watch. And so yeah. I guess working with like-minded folks who in a sense, the only common thing we have in mind is that we have in terms of value is our belief in the shaping the future or designing the future. And so with that, we come from different backgrounds and we look at things quite differently. But I would bring that architectural worldbuilding sense to the conversation.
Peter Hayward: Using architecture as a kind of building, a kind of physical manifestation of the future. I wonder how do you have a future focus on the more interior and socially shared things like ethics and values and culture? Is culture also something that we can have a future focus on? And how do you practice on that?
Jawn Lim: Yeah I guess that's where my experience in architecture and design thinking would filter in nicely with future thinking as well. Because in design thinking, we talk about empathy. And the persona as a summary of someone's needs and all, but in futures we have the future persona. Which is a great hinge point to look at. What would say for instance, university students, in 30 years time or say 20 years time, so it's not that far away. In 20 years time, university students that are 25 or around there have a different learning demand. What would it look like? And everyone's like scratching their head. They're like no. How would you get there? I don't even know what I'll be? Where I'll be in? They have a lot of resistance to it. But I point to that five year old in that room, right? And I go, “Your daughter or your son has a certain way of learning. Now look at them use Google Home to talk to each other and learn from them. And look at the way that they're they always talk about digital natives and all. But if you look at it carefully, they've already had that habit. They grew up with this. And what seems really weird to us, it's very comfortable for them.”
I find Minecraft bouncing around with those blocky characters really strange, but they're like, of course they bounce around, say it's my five year old, with no problem with that. And they can see these abstracted walls pixel walls if we refer to in now terms as part of their lives too. And so I would think that the future of education, if you designed it, may not even need a university anymore. And again, I'm a university professor here, speaking this way. It's shooting myself in a foot, right? But it's not. Because in, if you look at it that way, in that kind of world that you build their new interactions, their new personas, to start with that their new interactions. With new interactions there will always be these new cultures that come about. That said, a good counterpoint to all this would be that innate needs of human beings that would never change over time. The need for love, assurance and all, no matter which format you take it in. So balancing that hyper reality of worlds that extend out of our pixels to what we are, to who we are eternally, I guess will always be that way. Our human needs. You could imagine a culture that you would want to build toward. Recently in Singapore we had the Design Future Symposium this year in 2022, and there were discussions, but how do you then build not just worlds that, or near future products, but how do you build a more reasonable me? Not just a more sustainable me, but a more reasonable me. And I thought that was quite interesting coming off that discussion, some of the questions that came off the symposium. So yeah, I would say to build culture, yes, you may have an architectural framework to it, but they're still the human behind the use of the architecture.
Peter Hayward: Thanks Jawn. So the futures that are emerging around you. Which are the ones that you are paying particular attention to as they happen and why?
Jawn Lim: Maybe to give a little context to my answer before I get to it . I just want to share a view about 1000 Singapores. A project that was done 10 years ago. And the concept was developed by Khoo Peng Beng, Belinda and the teammate Erik L’heureux. And what they were imagining was the entire world population living in 1000 cities designed like Singapore, which takes up about 1% of the world's land surfaces and uses a lot less resources. And because Singapore's population at that time was going towards 6 million. And then it's 6 billion in the world. So it was like 1000 Singapores. But that has changed now. I think we need about like 1,120 Singapores or something. Cause we didn't grow as much. But the whole premise of that project was very interesting because we talked about issues like they explore issues like density. And what keeps it going? Who is it that really runs Singapore? So there are photos of domestic workers and construction workers, and it’s very interesting, that pepper through all the diagrams on dimensions and all. I share this example because as a country that's highly landlocked we're always trying to imagine ourselves as a different form and addressing different issues of density. And for such a tiny little country, I think we've done an admirable job in providing enough living space. We don't have tiny little coffin apartments, they call them in Hong Kong. And I think we, we have decent amount of green space.
There's going to be a new town designed in Tengah’s new town there will be no vehicles on the ground level. It's all greenery and all vehicle support will be underground where the train stations or cars or trucks or whatever else. Garbage disposal. It's all underground. So you have this green surface and some folks have been trying to lobby the government to say, “Hey, why don't we grow Edible vegetables instead of just greenery on top? It's such an open green space, even with buildings would you consider that?’ In light of that will be Singapore food Agency's 30 by 30 plan where we're supposed to be 30% self-sufficient for our local consumption needs for vegetables and meats and everything else. So very interesting to explore all these challenges of a small city state. The Center for Livable Cities based in Singapore, is also exploring these questions. And with all that said we can't ignore the fact that this will create a certain kind of density, but we don't want to lose the humanity and all that as well.
One good example would be Kampong Admiralty. And Kampong Admiralty is designed by WOHA and they are housing estate for senior citizens that have a lot of greenery that the elderly likes to go out to and plant or have ownership over. And huge spaces that are sheltered for their Tai Chi exercises. And so it's been great, looking at all these architectural explorations and examples that Singapore has been trying and experimenting with and to great success in many cases. With that said, I think it's hard not to explore futures in terms of spaces and urban design and urban policy, whether it's public housing that's open to singles below the age of 35 or not. Because the current policy is 35 and above. Singles are allowed to buy their own government subsidized housing and just for context sake, government subsidized housing's really nice. 80% of our population lives in it and it's nicer since some of the projects I've seen in other countries. So I would say come visit sometime if you can, and you'll see that kind of a future is very exciting. So with that said limited resources and land has always been a concern. So whether it be education or design or food or retail that's where my clients come from and where they're asking these questions. I think that's where we'll explore application with scenarios that are wearing weight. It's like you're running and you're constantly wearing the weight of limited land and limited resources, and what would you do? With very expensive workforce. Highly educated, but very expensive. What can you do in the context such as this? So that's what I've been exploring and some of the clients I have are quite forward thinking and very willing to share their dreams and aspirations.
Peter Hayward: Yours is not a scarcity model, but there's a notion of trying to work within limited resource spaces or limited physical spaces and Singapore is an island, but of course it's in a world that there are many other behaviors being taken which would indicate that people aren't thinking like 1,150 Singapores. They're actually behaving in quite different ways. And I wonder the notions of dystopia that often creep in through, particularly the Hollywood media when there aren't many futures that aren't framed through Dystopia. How does the kind of Dystopias in the broader environment interact with this Singapore notion of the built and the created and the preferred.
Jawn Lim: Yeah, thanks for that question. I think help but think about William Gibson's article about Singapore in Wired magazine that got him banned that is well titled “Singapore: Disneyland with the Death Penalty.” And too many different people from other cultures they look at Singapore and say you have no freedom of speech. You can't do this, you can't do that. That's a dystopia. But what they don't realize is those of us living here, we have absolute freedom to walk out in the middle of the night. My daughters can walk at 3:00 AM in the middle of night and not get mugged. Why? Because we have no guns, except the police. And we have cameras everywhere and to some people there'll be over-surveillance. And we are dystopia as well, but then we go, hey, but it gives a blanket of safety and security that really it's missing in many countries. And so Dystopia in a Singaporean sense, maybe or if Singapore comes across as a dystopia to some people it might be because of the lens that you're seeing it from a Singaporean point of view, it's great. Wow. My kids go out safe. There's no robbery, there's no this, not that (fear).
And wow, I feel really safe with all the cameras. Instead of going, Oh what's the camera doing that? Why am I doing this? I guess culturally, we've always been a self-policing state in that sense. In the early years of Singapore, there was this movement where they would say, there are many plain clothes policemen, so you have no idea who's a policeman. So when everyone was chewing gum and spitting it on the floor and everything else, and then you go, Oh man, Singapore is such a Dystopia, you can't chew gum. And I'm like, No because of this design, this policy of not just a plain clothes police, levying a heavy fine on you if you spit or litter, it created a very clean Singapore. And without the chewing gums getting stuck in the doors of the train stations and the trains we've also saved a lot of man-hours trying to resolve those problems. (With) great efficiency, things are done on time. I would say not as good as the Japanese maybe in terms of that time keeping, but really good already.
And I think the Dystopic lens that many of these Hollywood movies painted out to be, could be again, with a certain Western bias, because that's the world they're referencing. And then a dystopia may be one where there's over-surveillance, maybe a lot trash everywhere, a lost smog and all but in Singapore, we have a very different view of a future. That this (real) dystopia will be one where I think we lose our humanity, we lose our culture, we lose our community, our identity. And so in order to preserve all of that, Singapore is greatly designed against losing any of those. So our financial models are built with a lot of robust scenarios to battle lots of huge global movements so that our people remain wealthy to a certain extent. Just look at the exchange rate right now. It's ridiculous how the Singapore dollar is stronger than the Australian dollar, a day that I thought would never come. We're really close to the US dollar and the Pound.There was a time where we would pay four Singapore dollars to a British pound and now its S$1.4 (to 1 British Pound).
So it's a very different world. Again not just the buildings that we have, but really the entire city, be it our fiscal models, political models. Where it keeps it very safe and transparent government that then encourages more business investment here. So that's where we're coming from. And I hope it doesn't paint a scarier picture for you. A different Chinese dystopia, but really it's the point of view isn't it? It's where you're seeing it from. And for us who are benefiting from the scenarios that were planned and executed on in Singapore we are here to delight in those moments. The desirable future, I would say Singapore has already experienced several of the desirable designed futures, and that's because of not just the government being very forward thinking. And I'm not sure if our listeners know, but I think we are one of the few governments that have a Center for Strategic Futures in the Prime Minister's Office and that says a lot about planning and looking forward in and designing the future we want in Singapore.
Peter Hayward: The communication question. How do you explain to people who don't know what Jawn Lim does, what Jawn Lim does? ,
Jawn Lim: Great question. So in the past I would just show a series of images that I've painted or I've collaborated on to explain the scenarios and futures that I design with my clients. And I think a picture does paint a thousand words. And so that's where I try to explain to them with a picture, but then at other times I let their imaginations run wild and tell them I'm a Design Futurist. And let them connect whatever they want in terms of their experiences with that and let that word paint a thousand pictures for them. So that's what I do. And I've tried everything from running a workshop at Harvard called Architectural Fictions, where undergraduate students not from design, would come together and use a model kit bashing method to create worlds and robots and architecture, take them in black and white photos and adjust the narratives to paint a possible scenario.
From a workshop like that to a Property Developer that I worked with that was looking at the future of retail and very concerned about all the eCommerce sites. And so we looked back at how we as individuals we enjoy Tours and museums. We asked the question, “What would retail be like if the shopping mall was a museum mall instead of just a typical mall? Would people experience things instead of buying things?” Yes, they'll consume some. Yes, it's a day out for the family, but what would it be like? And in hot and humid Singapore shopping malls are still thriving cause we're hiding from the heat and going there. And that particular property developer started working with a large eCommerce company after that.
So I'm really glad that I can work within that little intersection of say Design Futures in the middle with three circles around it, be it Visionary Architecture, Business Strategy and Service Innovation. So if I were to draw a diagram, that would be it. So I'm situated either between these disciplines and the Design Futures that I come up with will be somewhat visual so that it can spark a conversation. But they're not just merely visual. There are business plans behind it. There are financials that could make it real, and that's how I think my clients benefit from the service that I offer them.
Peter Hayward: You've mentioned how there's an Office of Foresight in the actual Prime Minister's building. How readily do your clients not only do the imagining, but actually take the ideas from the imagining and actually make it part of their actual things to do to actually create those futures.
Jawn Lim: I've been really fortunate to work with clients that are willing to not just imagine a future beyond their retirement, but a future for the entire industry because we can't really separate Singaporean-ness from the work that we do because there's always this national level desire. Even if it's a small business owner. So I'll illustrate this with a food and beverage company that specializes in, say, Premium park the one about pork that I shared a bit. Instead of just looking at their own profits, they're looking at how could they build an ecosystem that shares the knowledge that they have, that moves them beyond just a supplier of pork to creating or preserving the Hawker culture that we have. So we have Hawker Centres that we are so proud of them. They even have a version of it in New York right now, to promote Singaporean food as a heritage kind of output in that sense. How would that local pork distributor in Singapore then help with government policies to say give fresh graduates from culinary school a discounted rate say in owning their first restaurant or their first Hawker store, and instead of a Hawker store, maybe they have hawker restaurants, so a new hybrid.
So these business owners, I'm not just thinking for themselves, but thinking for the next generation. And because of that I think those clients have not just pushed their own business and themselves, but an entire industry forward. So yes it's hard because again, you have to line up many stakeholders, but the desire to do it's has really inspired many within their own organization as well as their industry peers and even competitors, not just to look at their own profit margins, but look at the industry as a whole. What could you do to keep the hawker culture, we're exporting it there. But it's dying locally. So what do you do? Instead of looking at their own company's growth, they look at the growth of the entire industry. And so that's been very heartening to see these clients work towards it.
Peter Hayward: I'm sure you're aware that Riel Miller has talked about the importance of us developing a future's literacy so we can actually have more and more people think about the future constructively and creatively to create preferred futures. And it's clear to me listening that the future's literacy in Singapore is very different to what a lot of us deal with around the world. What has gone in to creating such a literacy, such a range of almost images of the future that the people in Singapore can readily accept and a lot of us in other parts of the world actually find it hard to get traction on.
Jawn Lim: Thanks for that question. I think if I could answer this question with an inverted pyramid, if I may. So really wide at the top and then really narrow at the bottom. Okay. So we'll start really wide at the top in terms of Singapore. So as a nation we've been encouraged to always work for the nation. It is never a private future, it's always about what's happening next in Singapore? They are constantly campaigns, conversations, workshops, symposiums on a national level. And by conversations I mean like policy makers, meeting grassroots folks and different communities and we're talking about communities such as folks that are on wheelchairs, people who are blind or even clinically blind, they're speaking to these different groups constantly to come up with futures that are equitable for all.
And that's not very common, I think in most places. I think in Singapore, because of our scale and the thoroughness of how the government's going about talking to these different groups. I think at a national level, I would say we're all aware of a future that the current leaders and the country is moving towards. Whatever that future is we always see it as something really bright. And I know that sounds very Utopian in a sense, but why not design for that possibility? ‘Cause we know we won't hit an absolute utopia, but at least aim for it. And so as a country and as policy makers, that's what the government's been moving towards. And why we're able to do that as you rightly point out such a unique thing to be from Singapore and doing that is because we've seen the planning of the past. We've seen the design of certain scenarios of the past. It has come through. We have less than 1% homeless, I would say not even 1%, like 0.1% homeless. And why? Because that's designed as not just a policy, but as an entire movement to encourage you to take care of your own family. Don't leave anyone behind. And if there was somebody that's left behind social services in the nicest possible way, if I can define social services to the international world they come and they would house these people.
They'll give them a place to say why? Because it's a policy that's been designed and empowered and honestly with money to back up what they're saying. You put your money where your mouth is and they literally do it. They do take care of these people. They do try their best. Yes some people still fall through the cracks, but hardly anyone. Try your best to spot a homeless person in Singapore. I would give that challenge. You can because they're constantly being picked up, taken care of, given a place to stay and go, Oh, who are your family members? Can we find them? Is there anyone? And so at a national level, We don't want to leave anyone behind. And we're playing a team sport here and you're getting 6 million of us to do it. So that's the top of the pyramid, right? The very wide top. But when you start narrowing it down you find that it's also why we're able to have these kind of future forward mindset is probably because of our education as well.
We are trying from a very young age, as mentioned already, that, our children are exposed to Design Thinking at a young age. I won't be surprised if we're going to teach Futures Literacy to them very soon. I do see Futures Literacy going into universities a lot more. I do see it starting out in some of the polytechnics and I'm sure it'll come really soon to high schools and primary schools. And so that education bit is, again, an investment in the future because these children or young adults are going to be our future leaders and without them understanding Futures Literacy and understanding how it's not a singular future, but one that it could be in the plausible or possible range. And education's that next layer. So the top would be the nation and the government. The next layer down would be education. And then the third layer down would be individual companies that are willing to try to shift things, move things around individual organizations that are looking at how could they make things better constantly? And in the long term and in a sustainable way. Not just one policy, not just one fiscal year, but long term. So we have a SG Enable, we have that looks at empowering all the folks that may have some challenges. That need say occupational therapy help or something else, and they would go about customizing these future scenarios or groups of communities, not just themselves. And so I thought that's an interesting key to unlocking the way we solve things as well.
And right at the bottom of the pyramid, that narrow little point is each of us individually whether it be business owners, educators even as I mentioned, their primary school kid could imagine futures, articulate those futures, explain who it benefits and what they desire from it. I think that bodes really well for us as a country. Yes, not everyone knows about futures but it's becoming more commonplace I guess in conversations, especially with business owners and community leaders, and certainly our governments are on board with it. So government, education, companies and organizations, and then individuals. I would say the second layer on education needs some work, but there'll be more and more of this opportunities. And I think it's been great in I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but in Singapore we have a group that's called Singapore Futurists this meetup group, and we have a thousand people there. And the whole purpose is just to reach out to people and encourage them to think in terms of Future's Literacy. And that's quite amazing. We're not even counting the other like full-time practitioners and it is just enthusiasts that gathers in that group of a country of about 6 million. I think that's quite a lot of people.
We see it as a team sport. We look at futures as a systems wide innovation that we need to adopt. And I'm so glad that our founding father and government leaders are already very future forward. It's very comforting. It's very encouraging to be Singaporean in a time such as this. We've seen them successfully lead us out of the pandemic. We see them leader us out of the fishing village, poverty that we had in 1965 up to where we are today. And we have full confidence in the next generation of leaders. My children and those in primary school, to guide us to even brighter future.
Peter Hayward: That's a beautiful answer, Jawn. Thanks very much. On behalf of the Futurepod community and listeners. Thank you very much for taking some time out to have a chat.
Jawn Lim: Thank you so much. Really nice time Peter. I wish we could chat even more maybe at another time with a different series of questions and maybe with other friends as well. That would be great.
Peter Hayward: Thank you.
My guest today was Jawn Lim. You'll find more details about the things that Jawn spoke about in the show notes on the website. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did. I thought it was an uplifting story of what is possible. Futurepod is a not-for-profit venture. We exist through the generosity of our supporters. If you'd like to support the Pod please check out our Patreon on the website. I'm Peter Hayward saying goodbye for now