Weaving through the streets of Siem Reap on the back of a tuk-tuk at 4.30AM in the morning, warm humid air brushing my exposed skin, I reflected on the past few days on this side of the world. Watching the local people get ready for their day, each as if telling a part of their stories, helps you understand Siem [...]
I’ve been thinking a lot about my home country, Malaysia, lately – are things going to change, are we ready for change and are we actually going to embrace change? For many countries, democracy is often overlooked as if a hassle but for many, it comes at a price. In recent years, we’ve seen many countries go through transformation. Lives [...]
As my colleague explain our product, TeacherTime, to a suited man at the National Australian Association of Angel Investors Conference, the first few comments were pessimistic views and comments. When @HansKonings interjected with an optimistic view that the industry has the capacity to change and need to be changed, the suited man replied with a doubtful, “well, of course it can change”.
Three weeks ago, on my last day in Italy, I decided to dine at a nice fancy restaurant. Sipping wine watching people walk past me, I breathed several very deep sighs of relief and feeling an overwhelming gratefulness. It’s really, really hard to comprehend the fact that I was in Europe – let alone I was only told that I [...]
I came out of Startup Weekend, feeling exhausted and just slightly insane.
Going in, I wasn’t sure what to expect of the weekend, and from the pitches, it was clear that there were quite a large number of tech genius in the crowd so I might feel a little out of place but it was all good in the end. I was hoping to hear more ideas more in the social innovation space but was slightly disappointed that most of them were only ideas that we want, not need.
7 years ago, my best friend died of drowning. For 3 months, I questioned about life and how can I live a conscious, fulfilled life. It was the hardest thing I had to go through, and I vowed that no one should go through the death of a loved ones.
For a young person to lose their life due to a car accident or disease, its the failure of the medicine or the system, or pure carelessness or stupidity, but for a young person to die of suicide, its a failure of humanity.
Two years ago, I sat down with a typical Aussie bloke – a popular, high-achieving young men who were both good in academia and sports – who shared with me his silent struggle with mental illness since he was in high school. He did not get a diagnosis for at least 4 years because he never would have thought that a man can get a mental illness.
This post is inspired by Jenny’s recent post on being awesome in life. It’s funny that I can laugh at this now but if you have shown this to me last year, I would have given you a smirk, agreed with what you said and thought in my head, “easier said than done, amigo”. I seem to be able to [...]
This is an interesting and highly relevant workshop especially for those who are working in the university. As more and more university increase their community engagement strategy, this talk might shed some light on how universities can optimise the potential of the incredible amount of young people in their institutions, and the leadership and awesomeness (for lack of better words) [...]
It’s Thanksgiving Day in the US and I know we don’t celebrate it over here in Australia, but I still think its equally important for us to be thankful for the things that we have and the things that we don’t have. I’ve always been one that have taken things, people and circumstances for granted – not that I grew [...]
I was invited to sit in a staff meeting of a large non-profit organisation heavily funded by the federal government working on building communities and bridging gaps in the community. I spent about an hour talking to them about what I do and my beliefs as well as answering all their questions. One of the leaders of the organisations mentioned [...]
A few months ago, I was invited to be a part of a discussion with a group of social innovators from around the world discussing about what we believe is going to be a trigger for a massive global transformation. We call this the Emergent Transformation. It’s going to change how humans do thing, especially young people, utilising technology to [...]