studieschuld???

Hoi Pico,

Ja, Singapore is erg primitief, geen auto's, geen infrastructuur, geen PC's, geen geld, helemaal niets….

Ik kom je snel opzoeken.

groet

Eric S'pore

http://www.prikpagina.nl/read.php?f=620&i=3221&t=3221

verhaaltje over Singapore en de wereld:

April 11, 2005

World looks to S'pore for inspiration

By Edison Liu

For The Straits Times

SOMETHING strange is happening to the world on the way to maturity. It is beginning to look like Singapore.

Ridiculed for pandering to foreign multinationals, Singapore achieved economic success through foreign investments from multinational corporations. With the dramatic failure of national socialist and communist movements worldwide, previous critics scrambled to copy this stratagem.

Lambasted by America's left for its authoritarian government, the US Patriot Act passed after 9/11 looks surprisingly like one of Singapore's security laws.

Libertine secondary education in the West is failing, and the early science and maths focus in Singapore is being watched by Western educators as a successful alternative. Health economists are asking why the United States spent 14 per cent of its GDP in 2000 on health, but has lower health statistics than Singapore, which spent a paltry 3 per cent.

Meanwhile, Perth is thinking of banning chewing gum. Singapore's pragmatic strategies, crafted out of necessity by a strong and prescient leadership, came out of one brutal understanding - succeed or die. Ideology was and still is a luxury.

Other natural forces are also making the world look more like Singapore.

Before the 20th century, many frontiers were in place. When a region depleted its natural resources or when a country collapsed, there were still virgin territories that offered escape and refuge. South-east Asia, the Americas, South Africa and Australia had a wilderness that needed taming, and refugees were a welcome source of manpower.

Then, small islands such as Singapore with no natural resources and limited land mass seemed sorry places to be.

Times have changed. With more than 6.4 billion humans on the earth - a doubling of the population since 1960 - and with all land surveyed, all regions inhabited, all earthly sites accessible by current transport means, all human outposts connected easily by modern telecommunications, there are no longer any frontiers.

More disturbingly, the natural resources that we assumed would always be there are being depleted. Sources of natural oil and gas will be curtailed severely in this century, global water supplies are becoming polluted, oxygen-providing forests are shrinking at alarming rates, arable land has been lost to soil erosion and desertification, and species extinction has accelerated dramatically.

Some people have called the current trend ‘the sixth great mass extinction’.

Not surprisingly, the arrogance of people from countries of plenty is drifting quickly to the anxiety of humanity with an island mentality, limited, bounded and with nowhere to go.

This state of affairs has been Singapore's reality since its inception as an outpost of trade. It represents the challenge that has tempered its people since independence in 1965.

Wise management controlling limited resources, guided by independent national policies cognisant of reality but beholden to none, has allowed Singapore not only to survive, but also to thrive in a hostile environment.

So, as the world constricts and appears more and more inhospitable, global governments are beginning to look at little Singapore for answers.

And in Singapore, the answers to our problems are frequently found in science and technology (S&T) and its careful management. So, current discussions in government and academia about this country's future investment therein have great meaning, not only locally, but globally.

When well managed, S&T has always provided answers to the problems confronting mankind.

Agriculture and domestication of animals began the first waves of human expansion by overcoming the limitations of hunters and gatherers.

Navigation and the technology of ocean travel permitted extended trade of vital survival goods.

Global logistics, water purification and farming productivity all expanded dramatically due to man-made scientific advances.

Our abilities to control the elements, to feed our populations and to preserve the environment have their solutions in the trinity of science, engineering and sound management.

True, S&T has also been the cause of significant suffering. However, the massive pollution from earlier mining processes, the destruction of modern warfare and the mechanised plunder of natural forests and the oceans depleting our fragile environment have one thing in common: Absence of far-sighted public management systems and rational governance structures, and this has led to the misuse of powerful technologies.

In these domains of public management and governance, Singapore excels above even the most powerful countries. It is therefore in S&T, coupled with strategic management governed by an informed citizenry, that Singapore will find solutions for 21st-century problems, and it is at this point that Singapore can be a global leader.

The critics are already lining up. How can Singapore solve the world's problems with its science? It is small and lacks the critical mass of, say, the United States, Europe and Japan.

So true. By itself and in its current status, Singapore is behind the giants. But it does not need to stay this way.

Science, by its very nature, is so broad and even elusive that no single country can claim a monopoly on scientific productivity, not even the US.

In technology innovation, smaller countries often contribute disproportionately and end up much more influential than their size might dictate. So, countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, Israel and Finland contribute to S&T far beyond their population sizes.

A critical factor is a greater investment in research and development (R&D). In 2002, Singapore's spending on R&D was 2.2 per cent of GDP which, though respectable, is relatively small by the standards of the most technologically advanced nations (the US at 2.7 per cent, Japan at 3.1 per cent and Germany at 2.6 per cent), and miniscule in absolute terms compared to these large countries.

The reality is that smaller countries must devote disproportionately more resources to R&D in order to achieve comparable impact. Israel is investing 4.7 per cent of GDP in R&D, Sweden 3.7 per cent and Finland 3.5 per cent.

Overall, there is a good correlation between a measure of productivity such as generation of intellectual property (US patents filed) and percentage of GDP invested in R&D.

When adjusted to patents per population, the intellectual property (IP) productivity for Singapore in 2003 was comparable to the Netherlands (which invests about as much as Singapore in R&D), but just half as effective as Israel, Switzerland, Sweden or Finland, and only a third as productive as Japan. So, a small increase in national spending in R&D can provide significant returns in science output.

An increase in investment in R&D is not to support blue-sky games for academics or to enrich a few technology entrepreneurs through exploitation of patents. Such an investment is essential for the well-being of Singapore's citizens, the maintenance of the country's current prosperity and even national autonomy.

During the Sars crisis, our scientific and medical readiness allowed us to help identify the causative agent, develop critical diagnostics and style a national medical response.

Enabling basic science and sophisticated health-care systems also resolved a potential national emergency. Singapore responded to the threat of water cut-offs by harnessing technology to create NEWater.

PSA remains competitive only because of constant upgrading of automation and computerised logistics.

All these solutions were based on managed technologies.

One can imagine that some of the future projects of national importance would include the extraction of maximal energy efficiency in air-cooling systems, computers and transport vehicles; less expensive water purification operations; phage-based waste-management systems; microbial removal of toxic metals; sensitive detection devices for infectious diseases; fungus repelling paints; alternative energy sources and paperless hospitals and e-government.

Though this may seem like a catch-up game, Singapore has some formidable advantages in this race.

The standard of education in science and maths is superior. That English is the primary language in science makes conducting science in Singapore straightforward. This language advantage and a relatively open immigration system encourage global talents to root themselves in the Republic.

Just as Singapore succeeded in the past as an entrepot trade centre for material goods, it can become a future success as the centre for the exchange of creative ideas and the engagement of diverse human talent.

This road to success should not be new to anyone who has worked in the US. Sixty per cent of all new PhDs in the physical sciences, engineering and mathematics in the US are foreign born, as are 36 per cent of those in the life sciences.

The US fuelled its impressive science development heavily with foreign talent. So long as Singapore can remain a station for talented individuals drawn from a global source, it will do very well in the worldwide S&T competition.

Though debate in Singapore is often centred on the recruitment of ‘foreign’ talent, the more problematic issue will be how to retain talent with Singaporean roots.

More than any country in Asia, talented Singaporeans in S&T are competitive in the worldwide job market. The better Singapore is in S&T, the more attractive Singaporeans will be to companies in far-off places.

The bigger and more pressing question is how to provide an environment so that indigenous talent will stay, and if they must leave, will want to return. In this social dynamic, there is still room for improvement.

But the most formidable weapons in Singapore's S&T arsenal are the quality of its leaders, a political culture of economic pragmatism and flexibility and the country's ability to integrate complex systems.

In the current state of commercialisation of S&T, size is less important than speed and integration. Advantages from speed and integration are predicated on good leadership.

It is here that Singapore has an inherent advantage.

Evolutionary history teaches us the same lesson. When earthly conditions were optimal, the great dinosaurs dominated. But in conditions of limited resources, they died, leaving our small, mobile (speed), omnivorous (flexible) and intelligent mammalian ancestors ultimately to dominate the earth.

We should be very optimistic about Singapore's potential for greatness in S&T. The only limitations are will and confidence. Singapore has everything else in its favour.

The key is to enhance our investment in national research and development, to aggressively manage our IP portfolio, to attract and retain global (and by implication, Singaporean) talent, to encourage individual and institutional flexibility and to destroy barriers to integration and internal cooperation.

The writer is director of the Genome Institute of Singapore. The opinions expressed here are his own.

La M@m@

Eric S'pore

La M@m@

Eric S'pore

La M@m@

Eric S'pore

rene

Alexei Kirillov