By PN Balji
Editor, The Independent Singapore
“Zoo Man” Bernard Harrison talks about why he left the Singapore Zoo and why Singapore is lacking in creativity. This is the second and final part of his interview in which he earlier talked about his life in Bali
Q. Tell us about your experiences in the Singapore Zoo?
A. I first joined in 1973 and was appointed as Curator and then promoted to Assistant Director & Curator – which is really like a General Curator.
The job of a Curator is to manage the animal collection. The Curator works closely with the keepers to ensure that the animals’ welfare is taken care of — basics like adequate shelter, food, water, freedom from discomfort, injury and distress — and the animals are allowed to exhibit normal behavior and have companionship and breed. You try and replicate, be it symbolically at times, the ecological niche that the particular species comes from. You also are in charge of animal transactions — bringing in new ones and sending some away – and the more gruesome stuff like euthanasia. The Curator has the best job in the zoo…far better than Director…but it pays less…..so you have to move up to make ends meet.
When we first opened Singapore Zoological Gardens in 1973, there was a spate of animal escapes. A hippopotamus, named Congo, got out into the reservoir for 48 days and made almost daily news in the media. This was followed by a panther and eland which both escaped into the surrounding forested catchment and then a tiger climbed up the fence of its exhibit and walked around the top, so she was physically free.
They were exciting times for a young man like me and very trying times for an older man…my Chairman. Dr Ong Swee Law received a letter from the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew when the eland escaped (it was the culmination of escapes) which said something to the effect that this is the largest and fastest antelope on earth and he was a loss as to how we were going to recapture it. Dr Ong wanted to resign! Well, two weeks later it came home! It simply waked up to the back gate of the Zoo and right back to its enclosure. Not that much to eat in a rain forest for a grazer of the African plains, I guess!
We were young, inexperienced and new to the game. I bet there are still the odd escapes at the Zoo now, but they recapture them more quickly!
In the Singapore Zoo I really liked developing the Primate Kingdom. It’s simple, tranquil and displays a range of beautiful and social monkeys set in a forest setting with a moat full of arapaima – a huge fish from the Amazon which come and feed from the keepers’ hands with a sucking noise that scares the pants off most visitors!
And of course the Night Safari was a project we worked on from scratch, conceiving it with our consultant Lyn de Alwis (who designed the Singapore Zoo) in 1987 and opening it in 1994. That is probably the single biggest project of which I am proud…and damn it – it’s doing very well for itself!
Wildlife Reserves Singapore now operates the four parks — Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Safari and Jurong Bird Park — and is ranked as one of the top 10 zoos in the world!
Q. When did you leave? Why did you leave? Any regrets?
A. I left in 2002. The chairman at the time, Dr Kwa Soon Bee, and I didn’t see eye to eye on a number of different issues, I being a bit of a rebel at heart and he from the old civil service. It was a mismatch – chalk and cheese – and something had to give…which was me.
I miss the staff. We had the dream team there. You cannot begin to imagine what a dream team is in the Singapore context. But it was.
Before the merger of the Zoo and Night Safari with the Bird Park to form Wildlife Reserves Singapore, we had created a bunch of staff who basically got along with each other and because there was very little in-house politics, were all pulling in the same direction.
Unusual if not unique in Singapore!
Without this kind of camaraderie there is absolutely no way we could have managed an annually award-inning tourist attraction, developed a major new animal attraction on a yearly basis at the Zoo and also developed the Night Safari simultaneously. I take my hat off to that team from 1985 to 2000!
Q. What do you do now?
A. I am a consultant and run my own, very specialized zoo design company: Bernard Harrison and Friends.
We offer a range of services for the conceptualization, planning, design and initial management of animal based attractions and eco-tourism projects. However, having said that, we are most efficiently used as conceptualizers of new projects and master planners. I think this is our strength as we are a team of very experienced zoo designers and managers who can offer a fresh and very lateral look at a new zoo, ensuring at the same time that it will really work.
One meets a lot of people in our business who claim to be zoo designers but who have never built a zoo that actually operates. That’s the scary part… it’s all a bit like smoke and mirrors and sleight of hands.
A new zoo recently opened in Rabat, capital of Morocco. We developed the concept and master plan for it. If you are ever there, go see it. It’s great!
The difference with consultancy is that we normally work on the initial development of a zoo and do not get involved in the later design and implementation. Thus one loses the intimacy of the final product. That’s why I cherish the projects at the Singapore Zoo in which I was involved (with that dream team of staff) from start to finish.
Q. You are very passionate about creativity. Do you think Singapore can ever become a creative nation in the true sense of the word?
A. That’s a whole article in itself!
Let’s just say that there is a real difference between creativity and innovation. We do a great job of innovation but fall far short of being creative.
The present-day Singaporeans are not particularly creative because we beat the creativity out of them from the time they start at kindergarten. Creativity requires lateral thinking which is nurtured by the encouragement to question your parents, teachers and the system.
Our education and much of our basic social structure is based on Confucianism and Greek logic. The pillars of Confucianism are personal morality and conduct, family loyalty, respect and obedience for parents and superiors, a strong examination system and a highly competent civil service. Thus Confucianism discourages inquiry, questioning and especially argument with teachers and parents.
Greek logic or dialectics was formulated by Socrates and is behind most Western thinking methods. It is typified by the search for knowledge and truth through logic, encourages dichotomies to force a choice. Edward de Bono calls it “adversarial thinking which completely lacks a constructive, creative or design element. It was intended only to discover the ‘truth’, not to build anything”. Adversarial thinking discourages parallel thinking, which is the cornerstone for creative thinking and the development of lateral ideas.
Based on this combination of teaching methods our system is already disadvantaged for the development of creativity. Add to this the extremely boring teaching methods now in place and a firm adherence, at all costs, to the syllabus. Then add strict homogenization of students through a dazzling array of uniformed groups such as the Boys Brigade and National Police Cadet Corp. National service completes the homogenization process for the boys and returning scholars are uniformed in white shirts, blue trousers and gold rimmed glasses — the uniform of the civil service!
If you want to read more on what I have written on creativity, go to my website www.bernardharrisonandfriends at media releases and download Can Singapore Become a Create society? And Guns Germs Steel and Creativity
Q. What does Singapore lack in this area?
A. Creative people question authority, push the boundaries and do not conform to rules and regulations. You need this for lateral thinking.
For Singapore, this is the downside of creativity. For the government gets very jittery with people like this around, despite their being apolitical… more likely bohemian and gay.
Innovation is incremental improvements on a product (in the broadest sense of the word). It is what the Japanese are famous for with quality control circles (which were invented by an American!).
Singaporeans are good at innovation and we have the government infrastructure and discipline to develop products and market them. However, we don’t have the creativity to dream up new ones. We should import creative talent when we need it, but focus on innovations and selling the results, which we are extremely good at. So really we should identify our strengths and stick to them.
We will only be another Silicon Valley if we populate our science parks with NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) and Europeans and Americans drawn by the bigger bucks they can earn here.
Q. Are you happy?
A. Absolutely.
See also the first part of the interview: Bali hi! ‘Zoo Man’ Bernard Harrison in paradise
Bernard Harrison interview (Part 2): When a rebel clashed with a civil servant boss
Can there be another Pillay, another Sim Kee Boon?
Can Singapore produce another JY Pillay, Sim Kee Boon or Philip Yeo? Civil servants who can create or nurture world-class institutions?
Pillay will be remembered as the visionary chairman of Singapore Airlines who turned it into a top-flight carrier, Sim as the man who helped create Changi airport, Yeo as the chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB) encouraging foreigners to invest here and as chairman of A*STAR promoting biomedical research.
How can they be emulated? Can there be another Changi airport, another Singapore Airlines, another EDB or A*STAR?
Is it fair to expect civil servants to create or nurture world-class institutions? Isn’t that what you expect of an ambitious entrepreneur like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?
Civil servants start as faceless Renaissance men, moving up the ranks of the civil service while working behind the scenes, drafting and implementing policies. In an arcane world of growing specialization, they are expected to be gifted generalists, able to handle, say, finance and urban planning with equal aplomb.
But he did not have to do what Pillay or Sim Kee Boon did. One may say the pioneers are impossible to emulate because Singapore is now a mature economy. There is not going to be another Singapore Airlines or Changi airport. But look at all the changes taking place. Old institutions have merged into new entities such as the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and the Media Development Authority. There is a whole new airline – Tiger Airways.
The civil service has to change with Singapore. Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman Eddie Teo warns against elitism. This is his second open letter – and it marks a change from his first.
In his first open letter , in 2009, he wrote about how to prepare for the PSC scholarship interview.
This time, he stresses the need for greater diversity in the civil service to avoid “groupthink” and “appreciate the needs of a more diverse population” because of the new immigrants and more Singaporeans marrying foreigners. PSC scholarships are being offered to students from more schools, he says.
Things have changed since the 2011 election. Sustainable growth, greater productivity and reduced dependence on foreign workers are the new desiderata.
The government plays a bigger role in Singapore than in many countries. It was not the US government which created Silicon Valley. That was largely done by private enterprise. In Singapore, it is the government that decides which industries to promote. Helping make the decisions and carrying them out is the civil service. So Singapore is really run by the mandarins.
“The most meritocratic civil service in the world today is not found in any Western country but Singapore. The elite civil service ranks are filled by Administrative Service Officers (AOs). To get the best to serve as AOs, the Singapore government tries to pay the most senior AOs as much as the private sector… It’s a small price to pay if a country wants to progress and succeed in a far more competitive environment.”
In light of the transformation under way, the discarded old policies and the new thinking, one may – taking a leaf from Mahbubani – ask: Has the civil service been delivering the bang for the buck? Changing times call for not only new ideas but the vision to anticipate the future. The move for greater diversity in the civil service shows a quest for new perspectives, fresh pairs of eyes.
Elections not enough? We also need referendums
By Vignesh Louis Naidu
A couple of weeks ago, Zurich opened its first drive-through sex boxes. These were built by the state to provide prostitutes a clean and safe environment to work from and to move prostitution out of the main streets of Zurich. The project cost the state $2.1 million to install and $749,000 to run annually. The residents of Zurich are generally supportive of the government’s decision, which was based on a referendum.
A referendum is an interesting tool that democracies can choose to utilize. In a referendum, the electorate can support or oppose a policy proposal. When democracy first flourished in classical Athens, it was a system of direct democracy where all eligible citizens were allowed to directly participate in policy crafting. As countries got larger, more diverse and complex, democracy adapted to its most common present form, a representative democracy. In a representative democracy the electorate chooses its leaders and representatives in regular elections.
In the mid-800s the Swiss added the ability to hold referendums into their state and federal constitutions.
Many countries have since used referendums to decide on critical national issues. Even Singapore held a referendum regarding the decision to join the Malayan Federation. The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) did a study on the use of referendums in Asia. The study covered 35 countries in Asia including Australia and New Zealand. Singapore was classified as “a country that is quite unfriendly to initiatives and referenda”. This put Singapore together with countries such as China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and North Korea.
In the last decade the Singapore government has had to make many critical decisions that have in some instances contradicted earlier policy stances. A prime example would be the decision to allow casinos. When the idea of opening a casino had been previously mooted, the government took a very strong stance against it. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew famously said that there would only be a casino in Singapore over his dead body.
The government had highly charged debates regarding the decision. Many PAP members spoke against casinos. Religious leaders united to petition the government to reconsider the decision. Many economists, on the other hand, spoke about the economic benefits of casinos. The issue was debated online and offline, in coffeshops and swanky bars. The decision to allow casinos was seen as a wholehearted embrace of capitalism and the final nail in the coffin of our socialist past.
Did the government ever consider holding a referendum on this matter? After all the debates in parliament and the media, could the government have not called on the citizens to make the final decision? Today many people accuse the government of having disregarded public opinion and taken a unilateral decision to allow casinos. A referendum would have ensured the outcome reflected the views of the majority.
The government has in recent months talked about the “silent majority”. The decision to embark on “Our Singapore Conversation” was meant to capture their voice. What better way to make them heard than through a referendum?
If the government does decide to seriously consider using referendums to give Singaporeans a greater say, we have to be cautious. We cannot resort to a referendum every time a controversial or politically challenging decision needs to be made. We should only conduct a referendum on issues that affect the threads that bind the fabric of our city-state. The government should allow the citizenry the ability to initiate a referendum but should ensure that requirements are sufficient but not excessively onerous. Many countries that hold referendums cloak their options in political and technical jargon making the average citizen feel that there is only one feasible choice. Singapore should ensure that referendums do not become tools that political parties can capture. The citizens should be presented with a simple choice; Yes or No.
A current issue that could be decided through a referendum would be, whether Section 377(A) of the penal code should be repealed. This is an issue that is very personal and important to various groups in society. There are the LGBT activists who want it repealed and more conservative groups who believe that we as a society are not ready to decriminalize homosexuality. The two major political parties have not taken a very strong stand on the issue. It is not a very political issue but has to do with our social values. It would be great if the people were allowed to make an informed decision. At the end of the day the argument made against any possible repeal is that the majority of Singaporeans are not that accepting of homosexuality.
So let’s find out!
Vignesh Louis Naidu is a young and passionate Singaporean who recently completed the Master of Public Policy course at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Government needs to change its mindset about education
By S. Bala
In a recent comment, Senior Minister of State for Education, Indranee Rajah said that the parents need to change their mindset about tuition and education, and not to pile students with unnecessary tuition. Perhaps, it is the government that needs to change its mindset:
Education assessment is not just about ranking students but is a process that melds 3 important elements: how students learn, the tasks or situations that allow testing the knowledge acquired by the students and interpretation of data of the students’ performance. Unfortunately, we had been compromising learning, leading to ambiguous knowledge testing and extremely limited interpretations of what students know. Here is the rub: One size does not fit all. When we try to design an all-purpose assessment for different learners, we will not be able to sufficiently meet any purpose.
An effective assessment should allow valid and fair inferences about student achievement. A single formal assessment is not valid nor does it allow making fair inferences of students’ achievement. The Primary School Leaving Examination is one such summative assessment. A conventional pen and paper test, such as PSLE, limits the potential of an effective assessment which otherwise could have been a gauge to assess a broad repertoire of cognitive skills and knowledge of various kinds of learners.
Knowledge acquired by students is contextualized and influenced by the environment in which it is acquired. It takes a high level of cognitive processing to apply this knowledge to different contexts. In essence, it does not mean that when a concept of percentage is taught, every student is capable to apply and transfer the knowledge especially to solve problem sums which requires manipulation of numbers procedurally. There also seems to be an apparent disregard of the student’s language ability to comprehend the word problems which may retard the arithmetic skills .The task becomes even more arduous as the student is not just expected to apply the knowledge in a new context but do this within the constraints of time.
The assessment on student learning should not be determined by a single, conventional pen and paper test but a series of assessments that incorporates different modes such as the use of computers. Electronic test can also be customized to the individual student’s learning style, context or purpose.
Test scoring and reporting of results is often conveyed as a testimony to the student’s subject competency especially in a high-stake examination. Robust statistical tools ensure a fair and valid reporting of the results. Currently, T-scores are used to report the student’s performance relative to his peers. It does make sense to use standardized scores as students taking various combinations of standard and foundation subjects can be assessed as a cohort. There is no fault here.
The problem lies in the first two legs of assessment: understanding how students learn and testing that learning through diverse modes of assessment. We do use sophiscated statistical techniques but it has no bearing if the cognitive tasks of the students are restricted. The pertinent question is : Is the Singapore education system fair in assessing the students’ competence?
Policy makers need to recognize the limitations of the current system. They need to accept that there is a misalignment of high stakes accountability examinations and the instructional practices in school which are geared towards critical and creative thinking. This will require a departure from the current beliefs that important decisions cannot be made on a single score, definitely not for a placement examination. We need to understand that assessment is not a “snapshot but a movie”. We want to know how a student progresses over time, not where they stand in a given time.
JEM ceiling collapse due to leaky pipe, closed till further notice
Photo courtesy: Lawrence Chong
SINGAPORE – JEM shopping mall located at Jurong East will be closed till further notice. 240 shops will be affected by this closure.
The incident took place on Wednesday night at about 10.15 pm and three women in their 30s were injured.
According to an eye witness, a broken pipe caused the mall to be flooded soon after the collapse. The retail store of Fossil, an American designer and manufacturer, was affected by the flood.
OCBC bank has posted on their Facebook page informing their customers of the closure of the branch.
Tenants are concerned that the collapse might deter patrons from visiting the mall.
There was also a fire incident at JEM on the 17th of August 2013. Three employees working at the Ready-to-Eat counter at NTUC FairPrice Xtra store became casualties.
It is not known if the tenants will sue JEM management for negligence.
No Tuition? Revamp education system
By Christine Mechtler
Senior Minister of State for Education, Indranee Rajah said private tuition is not necessary in Singapore’s education system.
Ms Indranee said: “The key to that is the parents’ mindset and belief. We hope the message will get out to parents, not to pile on unnecessary tuition onto their students.”
Revamp the entire education system along social principles. We want the Scandinavian model. We also want free education for everyone, from pre-school through undergraduate or polytechnic or ITE. We want smaller class sizes and ideally teachers who follow the same class for at least three years from Primary 1 to 3 so they can really get to know the students and guide them.
Eliminate state funds for elite or “independent” schools if these still exist. You want to be elite and atas and independent, prove your independence; pay your own way. Don’t be so cheap-skate and expect the rest of us to subsidise you. Do Eton or Harvard get money from their governments? These funds should be used for those neighbourhood schools that cater to everyone. We bought into your story during our development phase that money is tight and we need to concentrate resources on the “smart” for best outcome. We see now that it is a lie, that it is actually to cement the status of those who “make it”. So, use that money for social purposes. Education is a social good and a social leveler and needs to be funded that way.
Redefining meritocracy
By Augustine Low
Elitism and meritocracy have suddenly become buzzwords.
Public Service Commission Chairman Eddie Teo said on Tuesday in an open letter on the PSC website that the PSC will continue to guard against elitism by having scholars from different socio-economic backgrounds as “a public service comprising only the privileged and upper classes will add to the impression that meritocracy leads to a lack of social mobility in Singapore”.
In July, Mr Goh Chok Tong had warned in a speech at Raffles Institution that “when economic inequality gives rise to social immobility and a growing social distance between the winners of meritocracy and the masses; and when the winners seek to cement their membership of a social class that is distinct from, exclusive, and not representative of Singapore society — that is elitism.”
Both warnings are strikingly similar.
In his recent National Day Rally, PM Lee Hsien Loong spoke about compassionate meritocracy, and he choked back tears in recalling the story of Dr Yeo Sze Ling who was blind since the age of four but went on to win the Singapore Youth Award and contribute to society. His point: That people can rise above circumstances and the system has to be kept fair for all.
The question is, could the relentless pursuit of meritocracy itself be the cause of elitism creeping into Singapore society?
In fact, the word “meritocracy” was coined by a man who used it to conjure the image of a society obsessed with talent, to its detriment. In 1958, British sociologist and Labour Party activist Michael Young wrote the book “The Rise of the Meritocracy.” Meant as a satire, events in the book took place in 2034, when psychologists had perfected the art of IQ testing. But far from promoting social harmony, the preoccupation with talent had produced social breakdown. The losers in the talent wars were branded as failures deserving of their fate. Eventually they revolted against their masters.
Some 43 years after his book came out, Michael Young wrote an article in the British newspaper The Guardian, affirming that much of what he predicted had come true. On British society, he said those left behind “can easily become demoralised by being looked down on so woundingly by people who have done well for themselves . . . It is hard indeed in a society that makes so much of merit to be judged as having none. No underclass has ever been left as morally naked as that.”
PSC Chairman Eddie Teo has asserted that “we continue to subscribe to meritocracy”. The focus is on refining the concept of merit and the PSC now uses psychological interviews and psychometric tests to determine traits such as leadership, character, interpersonal skills and stress tolerance.
Michael Young (who coined “meritocracy”) takes a more humanist approach, eschewing more and better testing for a “tolerant society, in which individual differences are actively encouraged as well as passively tolerated . . . Every human being would then have equal opportunity, not to rise up in the world in the light of any mathematical measure, but to develop his own special capacities for leading a rich life.”
Often cited by observers as possibly the best way to head off a meritocratic backlash is to give everybody equal opportunity, by intervening much earlier in life to boost the chances of those from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds. This starts with setting them on the right path through good, accessible early childhood education.
This is something the government is taking to in a big way. The Singapore Budget 2013 includes more than $3 billion extra funding for expanding the number of pre-schools and improving the quality of pre-school education. For parents, this will mean having more pre-school centres closer to their homes and workplaces and better quality teachers in these schools.
The recent warnings about elitism show that the government has perceived a fault line in Singapore society. There are signs that it doing its part to level the playing field across the board, to ward off any backlash from decades of meritocracy.
The bigger challenge is to effectively address the sense of entitlement that will drive a wedge between the haves and have not. The idea that “I made it because I’m smart, driven, and hardworking and you messed up because you lack intelligence and work ethic and therefore you deserve your fate.”
Augustine Low is a communications strategist. He is a former journalist with The Straits Times and The New Paper, and also managed public sector corporate communications.
Bali hi! 'Zoo Man' Bernard Harrison in paradise
By PN Balji
Editor, The Independent Singapore
Bernard Harrison, who helped create the Night Safari and make the Singapore Zoo a prime tourist attraction, continues to do what he loves. Bernard Harrison and Friends, his company, builds zoos around the world.
But why did he leave the Singapore Zoo in 2002? What is lacking in Singapore? Singaporeans are good at innovation, but creativity is stifled by the education system and social structure, he says. What’s the difference? Harrison, the “Zoo Man”, as he calls himself, answers the questions in this two-part email interview.
In the first part, he explains why he now spends much of his time in Bali.
Q. You have set up home in Bali. Tell us about that. Why Bali? When did you go there?
A. Tina and I decided to rent a house long term in Bali about 5 years ago. We have not really set up home in Bali per se. We have a home in Singapore and also in Penang, but choose to spend much of our time in Bali. We have been spending more time here for the last year and enjoy an evergrowing circle of friends – locals and expats. My daughter Sharda coined the term lowpats: localized expats.
Why Bali? It’s known as the Island of the Gods. You live in the constant presence of Agung, the 3,000m high active volcano that dominates my morning walk to the beach. You sit down for a coffee and there is Agung, poking his head through a mantle of clouds – dominating everything. The Hindu Balinese spend much time on the gods with offerings every morning. Best to appease this mighty volcano!
I love the pace of life here. As soon as you get off the plane from Singapore, you go into overdrive. Our home is in Sanur, which was a small fishing village and one of the first tourist areas to be developed. It’s managed to retain some sanity. It’s unlike the constant traffic jams, crowds, noise and partying of tourist urban sprawl of Greater Kuta which includes Legian, Semynak and Krobukaran.
Australian tourists – who use Bali as a their Asian playground — are prevalent in Greater Kuta although Chinese tourists are arriving in hordes now.
It’s substantially cheaper to live in Bali (house, car, domestic help, food) though alcohol is expensive. However, we have a few good wine labels made from Margaret River grapes but fermented and bottled in Bali that are reasonably priced (one has to get around the high tax on imported alcohol). There are also locally grown producers of reasonable wine on the island. Beer is, of course, fairly cheap….the ubiquitous Bintang.
Q. How does Bali compare to Singapore as a home?
A. Bali is a paradise. It’s got a great culture, the population is Hindu and there are many very interesting rituals and ceremonies. As it’s a tourist resort, you get the sophistication and range of restaurants if you want them and good supermarkets for imported goods.
Tourists stay in Bali for a week and hang out at resort hotels, along the beaches. That’s what you do. And surf. Singapore is also a tourist hub, hardly a beach resort, no matter what Sentosa tells you! I think 50 per cent of tourists to Singapore are coming for the casinos.
Q. Do you miss Singapore?
A. Yes, I do miss Singapore. It’s been home for 50 years of my life and where Sharda, my son Sean and stepson Christian live. However, I’m in and out often enough because my work involves a lot of travel and I choose to hub out of Singapore as opposed to Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur.
I also miss my constitutional bowl of fish ball noodle soup for breakfast and I miss my Rhodesian ridgeback Shumba. For a ruling understood only by Bali, dogs and cats are not allowed into Bali until they eradicate the current rabies epidemic on the island, which has been under eradication for the past five years.
Q If you were put into a time tunnel and pushed into the past, what would you do differently?
A. I don’t think I would do anything differently.
I totally enjoyed growing up in Malaysia, Australia and Singapore. I had lovely parents, had a ball at boarding school and university in the UK and landed the best job in the world which I kept for 29 years. I used to wake up every day and say, it’s great to be alive and going to work.
And ironically I left the Zoo and now have the very best job in the world, consulting on what I love…..zoos.
I have a fantastic wife, four superb children (two I helped make and two I inherited).
I can’t think of what else I would want to be different.
Read tomorrow:
- Why Bernard Harrison left the Singapore Zoo in 2002
- What he is doing now
- Why he says Singaporeans are good at innovation but the country is lacking in creativity
Amobee Adds New Dimension to Mobile Ads With PULSE 3D
Industry’s Only Real-time, High Fidelity 3D Mobile Ads Bring Products Out of the Showcase and Into Users’ Hands
REDWOOD CITY, CA and SINGAPORE, September 18, 2013 – Amobee, the company defining digital advertising, today announced the next generation of its ground breaking 3D mobile advertising platform, PULSE 3D. The new platform empowers advertisers to create realistic 3D ads that allow mobile users to engage with products in ways never possible before.
PULSE 3D ads are based on a new hybrid architecture of HTML5 and native device technology to achieve maximum reach, engagement, and performance. As a result, PULSE 3D ads are not only three-dimensional, but incorporate app-like features, location-based customization, as well as other forms of rich media, including video, expandable image galleries, interactivity and gamification. With PULSE 3D smart adaptation, advertisers can develop a single creative, which then gracefully scales across iOS and now Android mobile devices. Additionally, PULSE 3D ads can scale across 3D- and 2D-capable publisher inventory.
“Our mission is to create the world’s most beautiful, engaging ads to build lasting brand relationships,” said Trevor Healy, CEO of Amobee. “PULSE 3D gives advertisers the ability to put their products in people’s hands and explore them in ways otherwise only possible in a store. With mobile commerce on a fast trajectory, creating visceral experiences on mobile devices will become a ‘must’ for advertisers.”
Uniquely, the PULSE 3D platform delivers real-time 3D rendering in a mobile ad. Users can personally select which components of the ad they want to explore, making it a truly customizable brand experience. For example, within a PULSE 3D car advertisement, the mobile user can spin the 3D car model in all directions, open the car doors, change the exterior color, explore the details of the interior design, thus creating an unprecedented personalized experience. Every action of engagement in PULSE 3D ads can be measured and analyzed, allowing CMOs to effectively re-engage customers in a more meaningful way.
PULSE 3D has already been used to deliver immersive mobile ad campaigns for brands such as BMW, Expedia, Nokia, DISH Network, and The Weather Channel.
“We’re always looking to test new cutting edge, mobile ad formats, and it was crucial to work with a mobile advertising partner who understood our need to drive consumer engagement and downloads of the Expedia app among potential travelers,” said Elizabeth Dorrance, Media Director, Expedia. “The PULSE 3D ad created a unique experience that, combined with Amobee’s targeting capabilities, delivered strong consumer engagement.”
PULSE 3D is available now from Amobee. For more information on creating high-impact PULSE 3D ads, or to obtain the PULSE 3D SDK to deliver PULSE 3D ads with your content, go to amobee.com/3d.
ABBOTT'S WIN NOT A GOOD NEWS FOR THE “BOAT PEOPLE”
By Gaurav Sharma
Australia’s opposition leader Tony Abbott is the country’s 28th prime minister after his Liberal-National coalition defeated the governing Labour Party by winning 88 seats in the 150-seat parliament. While the two parties differed on issues such as measures for tackling an expected economic slowdown and reducing the controversial carbon emissions tax, both displayed politically expedient bi-partisan urgency on supposedly “vote-winning” issue of reducing the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat, or “boat people” as they are called.
As recently as July, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had announced all asylum-seekers, even women and children, arriving by boat with no Australian visa will be sent to the impoverished Papua New Guinea or Nauru for further processing or resettlement. “The asylum-seekers will not enjoy any right ever of being processed to go to Australia. There will be no cap on the number of people who can be transferred or resettled in Papua New Guinea or Nauru,” his government said.
While Rudd claimed “this policy is designed to stop people smugglers and stop further loss of life at sea”, critics have dubbed it as Rudd’s “Final Solution”.
WHO ARE THESE “BOAT PEOPLE”?
These asylum-seekers are mainly people fleeing from war-infested zones such as Middle-East, Iraq and Afghanistan, and from countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka, who bribe “people smugglers” in hope of a better life in Australia. As the boats used in smuggling people are not well-equipped, many drown en-route. Those who survive, are sent to the detention centres[or “concentration camps” as critics call them] in isolated islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Even when Australia detains the “boat people” on its own territory, the conditions are bad. There were 7,632 incident reports between October 2009 and May 2011 across the country’s operational immigration detention facilities including self-harm, assaults, hunger strikes, riots and disturbances.
For Australia, a land of immigrants, nothing can be more farcical.
As noted by award-winning investigative journalist John Pilger, in The Guardian recently, “For Aborigines and refugees, the irony is self-evident. Only Aboriginal people are true Australians. The rest of us – beginning with Captain Cook – are boat people.”
A new film on Australia by John Pilger, Utopia, commissioned by ITV and produced by Dartmouth Films will premier on October 3, which explores the country’s suppressed colonial past and its treatment of the Aboriginal population, against the backdrop of a huge mineral boom.
HISTORY OF THE “BOAT PEOPLE”
1992: Mandatory detention for refugees arriving in boats was put in place.
1998: A report by Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) stated that such detentions violated international as well as Australia's own human rights obligations.
2001: As known colloquially, “Pacific Solution” is implemented by the John Howard Government. This entailed detaining asylum-seekers in the Pacific islands, Nauru and Manus (in Papua New Guinea), while their asylum claims were processed. Such claims were not processed under Australian law and claimants had no access to legal assistance or judicial review.
2004: HREOC publishes a report criticising Australian immigration laws and stated that the “Pacific Solution” is fundamentally inconsistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
2008: “Pacific Solution” ends. Now, Asylum-seekers were sent to the Christmas Island, a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean, instead of Manus and Nauru.
2012: The Julia Gilliard Government ties-up with the governments of Nauru and Papua New Guinea again and restarts offshore processing of asylum-seekers. By year-end, 414 people were transferred to Nauru and 155 to the Manus Island.
July, 2013: The Kevin Rudd Government implements “Final Solution”, as known colloquially, which means all asylum-seekers will be held indefinitely on Papua New Guinea, with no chance of ever going to Australia.
August, 2013: A UN human rights committee calls Australia’s indefinite detention of 46 recognized refugees on security grounds amounting to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, inflicting serious psychological harm on them”. The refugees - 42 Tamils from Sri Lanka, three Rohingya from Myanmar and a Kuwaiti, are in detention for the last two and a half years.
September, 2013: Tony Abbott storms to power. Earlier, during his election campaign, Abbott had stated that if his party wins, he will deport refugees already in Australian detention centres and will not hesitate to use the Navy to stop asylum boats. He also plans to create a new “tent city” on Nauru to house the “boat people”.