Speech by 2M Desmond Lee at the World Cities Summit Young Leaders Symposium
Jul 8, 2018
A very good morning to all of you! I am delighted to welcome you to the 5th edition of the Young Leaders Symposium. This is one of the flagship events of the World Cities Summit. Since its launch in 2014, we now have close to 450 Young Leaders in our network.
Today, we have almost 90 Young Leaders from over 40 cities all over the world participating in the discourse on tackling urban challenges with innovative solutions. 40 of you are here with us for the very first time.
Although we come from different regions of the world and from different urban disciplines, I believe we all share a common vision to build sustainable and liveable cities for the people we serve.
Innovation and Disruption
Those of you who attended the Symposium in 2016 may recall our discussion on the world’s perennial “wicked problems” – problems that are complex and difficult to solve. I recall that the topic occupied our discussion during lunch and thereafter. We also explored a toolbox of solutions to address some of these challenges. Different cities have slightly varying toolboxes and tools, but we shared them and were able to consider options for other cities.
One problem that stood out for most cities was that governments were finding it difficult to plan and develop sustainable solutions to meet the changing needs and wants of our people.
With the onslaught of technological disruptions we face today, this uncertainty will certainly grow, alongside the social and economic anxieties that take place as cities react and adapt to these changes; hence, the overarching theme of the World Cities Summit this year – “Innovation and Collaboration”. And the theme – “Innovation and Disruption” – for this Symposium is not just timely, but also pertinent and relevant. I am sure many of us, in some way or other are affected by or may even be part of the innovation and disruption, and have many views and experiences to share.
Disruptive Urban Innovation
From transport and logistics, to accommodation and retail, almost every sector of our economies is being disrupted by technology and digitalisation. This in turn is changing our lives, literally – the way we live, work, play, mobilise, organise and communicate.
For example, on-demand ride sharing services and autonomous vehicles are fast changing the way we move from place to place. The online shopping boom is certainly influencing the way we consume goods and services, and disrupting traditional brick and mortar retail.
SENSEable City Lab is one organisation that has been exploring different innovative solutions and designs through the use of new technologies, to solve urban problems such as energy and water management. I’m glad that Carlo Ratti, the founding director of SENSEable City Lab, is here with us today. He has led his team to study the interaction between people and their cities, and how digital technology had influenced the way people describe, design and occupy cities. One of the projects by the lab includes developing autonomous boats which ferry people and goods along the beautiful canals of Amsterdam. The lab also deploys environmental sensing to monitor water quality and offer data to assess and predict public health problems, pollution and the environment. I look forward to hearing from Carlo about the interesting projects by the SENSEable City Lab later on.
While technology brings disruption, it can also help to address global problems such as food wastage, climate change and excessive energy consumption.
i. Energy management company and a start-up in Singapore, Evercomm, is one such example. Co-founded by one of our Young Leaders here with us today, Ted Chen. His company has been pursuing cutting-edge technology such as AI and big data analytics to track energy and operational efficiency in real-time. By analysing energy consumption and data from sensor networks, his energy dashboards have allowed manufacturing companies to figure out how to reduce energy wastage significantly and help companies tackle climate change at the same time. You will hear more about Ted’s experience and passion in achieving our Sustainable Development Goals later during the discussions.
ii. Another example of how technology and innovation can be harnessed for social good is in the work of Young Leader Devin de Vries, co-founder of WhereIsMyTransport. The company recognises how informal and formal transport data reveal connections within as well as between community and the city. This past February, they were even part of the OpenReblock project that was launched at the World Urban Forum, where their data will be crucial in revealing where and how to upgrade the conditions of people living in slums.
Challenges of Disruptive Innovation
While digital platforms and services have opened up new markets and brought benefits to many, they also pose social and environmental costs.
i. Here in Singapore, dockless bike-sharing services have created unhappiness among many due to indiscriminate parking and practices. Such tensions illustrate the line that the government has to tread not only between competing interests, but also in ensuring that the country remains open to new technologies and business models, or else risk missing new opportunities if you are overly rigid.
ii. Traditional businesses, jobs and industries are also at risk. For instance, many cab-drivers around the world are protesting against ride-sharing companies like Uber as their income and livelihoods are impacted.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
Despite these challenges, innovation is vital for a city’s development and progress and its people’s well-being. We must not resist new innovations and new business models, but rather strike a balance in allowing new innovation to co-exist with existing infrastructure and services and the people’s way of life.
i. Local governments play a very important role as they need to actively shape city developments to anticipate pitfalls and foster a pro-innovation, pro-enterprise, and pro-people environment.
ii. From a poll conducted at the Mayors Innovation Studio in Paris last year, more than half of the mayors reported that their cities had made regulatory changes of some kind or other, in response to disruptive innovation operating in their cities, and it is interesting to deep dive into what kind of regulatory changes they have made – whether they clamped down on these innovations, whether they regulated them, whether they encouraged them to grow, or whether these regulatory changes encouraged participation and co-regulation with the people.
iii. Governments around the world, including Singapore, are in various stages of test bedding and deploying new technologies like big data, machine learning, and AI. Governance in this age of technological disruption is becoming increasingly complex but it is certainly something that city governments will all have to navigate and adapt to.
A city is ultimately about its people. In this new digital age, governments have to be highly attuned to the changing needs and expectations of citizens. A new model of dynamic urban governance that involves a strong collaboration between the government and all stakeholders is needed to manage these impacts for cities as well as harness the potential that the digital age can bring about in improving the lives of city dwellers. The question is how can we forge this new model of dynamic urban governance? A tighter collaboration between people and its government, and what will it look like?
Conclusion
I am looking forward to the very engaging and stimulating discussions over these and other burning questions from the bright minds of our Young Leaders this morning. I am excited to see how the fresh and innovative insights from all of you would enrich the Mayors Forum this afternoon, during the Young Leader interjection, and bring new ideas to urban governance and development.
On that note, welcome to Singapore. We look forward to strengthening this network. Thank you.