Was nice to meet all delegates from different countries
Formed a new group instead of staying in the old group from the first leg in UKM
Happy to see the old trip mates again, although we were assigned to different groups
But as I was still in TRIO Camp (jointly organized by SO, WS and JB)
I left for the open rehearsal after signing in and putting down my luggage at my designated room
While the other local students brought our guests out of the campus to explore
After the short briefing during dinner everyone was free to have their own time
Day 1:
The day arrived finally
With much expectation, since I had forsaken my about $500 income (giving up my job offer as Graduate Marshal in Commencement Ceremony) to take part in this programme
It turned out to be good
Which could be seen from the opening ceremony
(the super awesome committee managed to get sponsorship from Shell Companies Sg and the chairperson of the company came down for the opening ceremony)
After the opening there's the first talk, a keynote speech by Dr Phillip Andrews-Speed from Energy Studies Institute, introducing the concept of the nexus of various resources and calling us for action
There were also a few interesting facts he shared (which some of us might not have Googled before) worth noting down
Another new thing that I learnt from the AUS would be Futures Thinking, the tool for the strategy team behind decision makers to foresee circumstances that might happen around the scene
I was immediately drawn to this new idea and anticipated to attending the workshop in that afternoon
The workshop first introduced the first tool used in Futures Thinking, which is the STEEP framework.
STEEP consists of Social, Technological, Environmental, Economical and Political aspects that we need to consider when evaluating a scenario.
While drawing lots, my group got the title "Food in Thailand in 2030" which we needed to present on the final day of the summit, hence we started to throw out ideas written of sticky notes, the good thing of having people from different course of studies is that you will get ideas that you never thought of (or just that it was not that accessible in your mind)
Day 2:
This day was packed with information as well
Right after breakfast was a panel discussion with 3 experts from the field of resources security
It was quite informative, but unfortunately most of the content were not quite technical hence didn't get a lot from it, perhaps the speakers were aware that there were participants from different disciplines of studies so they just introduced the main concepts, anyway I still managed to get some interesting facts from it
The following focused group discussion was a bit not conducive as there was just too many people in the seminar room (about 30 people?), didn't get the chance to churn out a question to ask and didn't understand clearly other's questions posted to the speaker as well (I could say this is the most regretful part for me in the whole program)
Futures Thinking workshop continued from the point where we stopped on Day 1
We voted out the circumstances to be further discussed using Futures Wheel (a type of chart plotting out direct and indirect future consequences of a particular change or development)
After all academic programs and the brain straining discussions
Here comes the fun part of the program!!!
Visit to the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay!!!
Had been wanting to visit the magnificent indoor gardens all the time but never found a time to do so (and of course didn't really want to spend the money haha)
Thanks to the program I got to enter these domes for free!!!
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Day 3:
Today's presentation consists of two themes: the securities of food and water.
From the speakers, the knowledge about how vulnerable is Singapore in terms of these two resources was further clarified in my head, and also the government's efforts in ensuring the supply for all inhabitants on this island.
A dialogue with Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law followed after the short break.
It was an honour and a memorable experience to be there, listening to other participants' questions as well as seeing in personal, how a minister answered (or deflected) questions from the floor, although in some he did not address the questions in the way we expected.
(but some was not all his fault as some questions were not of his expertise)
Personally think that there were a few participants whom I can't name all, asked some questions which would (quite obvious) not be addressed in a satisfied manner from the asker's point of view, they should have done more homework at the first place, given that this kind of dialogues are hard to come by.
In the end I felt the it was more like a "monologue" among NUS students and Minister Shanmugam and not much exchange with the foreign participants, but wells...
After this was an excursion to NEWater, a good exposure to let foreign participants know about one of the water source in Singapore.
(it's the second time for me to come so I more or less knew what the presentation content would be like, but the games corner was quite fresh to me HAHA)
And next was the Marina Barrage
but we didn't go for kite flying but visited the Sustainable Singapore Gallery instead
we were showed the operation model of the barrages (really COOL!!!)
Day 4:
The invited speakers for the day were from Ministry of Trade and Industry, and Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore.
Though the first one looked as if it was not related to the theme of the program, but the speaker is the deputy director from Futures and Strategy Division, which relates to the Futures Thinking part of the leg.
The presentation is about the indivisible usage of IT softwares nowadays and how they influence the trade system. From B2C in the past until C2C today, online trading has changed everyone's life a lot. The speaker also prompted us to think in different directions about changes that could happen.
(just a side thought, FEW nexus is extremely related to trade and industry, so yeps i think this was the reason why this guy was invited)
As for the second speaker, he presented a brief view of Singapore's Clean Energy Strategy.
Due to the encouragement by the government, greentech startups and related companies are quite abundant in Singapore.
From the presentation I also got to know a few more career options and related companies that I could consider besides those (which was quite few) that I initially know.
Day 5&6:
Basically were all for preparations of the final presentation of future scenarios related to food, energy and water in 5 ASEAN countries where all foreign participants come from (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines).
Our group finalized the contents by the evening of Day 5 and we worked on the poster, slides and speech draft until quite late at night (thank God it's before 12am HAHA)
On the final day (Day 6), every group presented on their topics, and it was fun to see other groups came up with all sorts of styles and skits.
When the winners for the presentation were announced, it was a little disappointing to know that our group didn't make it to the Top3 (among 10 groups), but it was a fair game, others have presented better than we did.
The official program ended with the prize giving and the official closing ceremony, but the party began at dinner time YEAH
(basically was just buffet dinner, ice creams, photobooth and karaoke at the USP-Tembusu dining hall HAHA)
It was like a dream (wells I know this is a bit exaggerating) for being part of this very first budding Asian Undergraduate Summit which is a student-run event
It ended in the blink of an eye anyway, but there are memories and new friendships that I will cherish for a long time in my life.
For most up there was a general description of the program, another post will be written (soon! but I dunno when HAHA) for a close-up of my thoughts and feelings.
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