Journal 5

This is the fifth lesson, it had been an intriguing, mind-boggling, yet disturbing journey. Since I started this module, I look forward to the next session and wonder what thoughts will I have. Going through the pre and post-workshop alone and attending the class are totally separate experiences. I definitely gain more by attending class. Lecturer and classmates offered ideas that I never would think of. It had brought me to another level of thoughts and imagination.

In this lesson, we talked about leading eco-systems and the 100-year plan and I allow my imagination to run wild. For this one time, I realised that I could think creatively not worrying about if its right or wrong. I had fun. I had a dejavu from a Korean drama, The Silent Sea, that was aired on Netflix that mankind could have their gene augmented to become amphibians so that humans can survive in water and land at the same time, considering the melting of the polar caps and flooding and/or submerging of cities.

What were the 3 takeaways from this class?

1. From Otto Scharmer – system thinking consciousness, ego to eco. Creating awareness that considers and include others as a whole. Be connected with your heart, go deep to trust how you feel. Changing a mindset by looking inward and really feeling it. Linking this thinking to leadership, with the ability to move away from reacting against the past to lean into and anticipate an emerging future is one of the most important skills today.

2. Biomimicry - the bullet train design was intelligent and ingenious when I learnt how it was redesigned. Why the people who design the world did not see this? Or have they been looking at it from a different angle? The micro desire, greed and aggression to advance from primitive to sophisticated world had caused the damage today. Do the people really care? Daniel Goleman said only 10% of the world cares passionately. Industrialisation destroyed our planet. That made me a culprit too. Will the next generation be able to reinvent or heal the planet or would they abandon Earth for another planet? Would history repeats itself or will there be an impact big enough to learn from the mistake? Or would the future technologist try to bring resources from another planet to save the Earth? It’s time to return to nature. Nature-inspired innovation and design.

3. The 100-year plan – co-existing with more technological advancement where technology is in every part of our daily lives (referring to the 10 macros of disruption). No way that our lives can be reverted to simple kampong life, but it is going to be high tech and modern kampong.

Sustainable development goals were trends in this world that I did not even think of it as a whole. Put together in a poster, a bird’s eye view of all the initiatives put together. At the same time, they are also the pressing issues that the world needs to fixed before planet earth is eradicated. Are we late onboarding to these initiatives? Why were they not echoed to the world in the earlier days? I remembered when I was in my teens and was exposed to solar energy, I had this idea that entire Singapore should have solar panels on every single building. We can power the lights, air conditioners, etc using solar energy. Its been more than 30 years ago since I had this idea and today, it is finally becoming true and what took so long?

Looking at the gradual increase in life expectancy of human mankind, the world would definitely be moving towards the improvement of living conditions, lifestyles, medicine and the eradication of major diseases to achieve a world population of approximately 11 billion in the year 2050. With the depletion of resources and living space, I wonder how will humans and the entire ecological system will thrive.