Thrilled to meet Steve Wozniak – and to discuss why Singapore needs to quickly build a critical mass of engineers, artists and angel investors.

We spoke at the Midas Touch Asia 2013 Enterprise Award ceremony on 26 August.

Edited excerpts of my speech – on Singapore’s prospects for making an impact on the ICT revolution.

In 1982, my father bought my first computer – it was an Apple II Plus. Many of you here are too young to have used that venerable piece of technology.

Edited excerpts of an interview by Elgin Toh of the Straits Times that was published at http://www.singapolitics.sg/supperclub

(Why did you choose this place – Senja-Cashew Community Club – to meet for supper?)

This place has special significance. Back in 2006, we decided to build a pool in Bukit Panjang. However, it was supposed to be in another location further south.

My first post-election block visit was to a block opposite here. At the end of the visit, the grassroots leaders went to the top, looked down, saw this pond (by the current location of Senja-Cashew CC), and said, “Actually, the pond is the centre of the town. So, instead of building the pool in the original site, let’s build it here.”

Edited excerpts of a speech I made at a NUS Commencement Ceremony on 14 July 2013.

Good morning and congratulations to those of you who are receiving your degrees today, and even heartier congratulations to the families that stand behind each one of you this morning.

There is a great difficulty in making speeches like this – I could read from the prepared text or I could tell you how I feel. If you do not mind, I want to tell you how I feel, not as a Minister, but speaking as someone who has walked in the shoes of everyone of you today, who is receiving a post-graduate degree.

Many well-intended people advised me not to pursue this saga. It was too mundane, and people wanted to move on.

But I felt duty bound to resolve this matter, because it goes far beyond clean ceilings.

The core issue is integrity.

The Property Manager of AHPETC, Mr Tai Vie Shun, demanded extra money from hawkers for cleaning the high areas of hawker centres. He did so on three occasions – 8 March 2013, 26 April 2013 and 28 April 2013. The hawkers have confirmed this consistently, and their account is backed up by notes of meetings.

Our skies were blue and the air crystal clear today.

Had a long discussion in Parliament on the cause of the haze and our plans for the future. I thanked Singaporeans for your calmness, patience, and the fact that you refused to get rattled by the situation. It is that ability to respond sensibly, rationally, cohesively and collectively as a people that makes the difference and makes me confident that we will get through this together, whatever happens.

The world is currently at several inflexion points. There are now more than seven billion human beings on the planet, and more than half of us live in cities. Indeed, the most essential elements of life – food, water – are now interlinked with energy, and with fossil fuels. And this portends therefore, either a potential crisis or enormous opportunities for businesses in the years ahead.

In the past, great fortunes were made by simply extracting resources, mining materials – iron ore and energy – from the ground. And manufacturing grew enormously, on the back of the availability of cheap resources and cheap energy. But this era of cheap natural resources is coming to a close.  And we can now no longer afford to ignore the externalities of industrialisation and of human activities.  Pollution and global warming are real phenomena,  which affect not just the quality of the environment, but also involves huge economic costs for all of us. In other words, the old ways of getting rich are not going to be viable in the future.

Like many Singaporeans, I would also prefer to have a smaller population of foreigners in our Singapore but ……

We are facing the crisis of our lifetime. Our citizen population will halve every two generations. This is a serious ‘long’ term problem and the only cure is more babies. But the real emergency is not babies, but ageing. That is why the population will increase in the short term before the inevitable decrease in the long term.

Woke up bright and early to send my youngest son to Primary One, along with thousands of other parents island wide. It brought back many fond memories as my friend and I watched our sons don the same uniforms that we wore 45 years ago.

A new beginning for all our children – and may they fulfill all their dreams and destinies along the ‘path of the infinite’.

I was reminded of the wise words of Kahlil Gibran on Children – words that I believe all parents should reflect on :

Christmas Eve 2012 fell on a Monday, and we spent it at the usual Monday Meet-the-People session. There were fewer residents than usual, but I was so grateful that we had a full complement of volunteers who were prepared to sacrifice time for a cause.

The combination of a festive air and basic challenges of life gave us food for thought as we shared a meal after the session.

Dear Prime Minister Lee and Minister of Environment and Water Resources Vivian,I write to the both of you because I and my society view’s this as a serious concern and it requires more

concerted and sustainable effort from the top right down to the bottom.

If you think we are a gracious society and very well behaved today, think again. At a recent public event (presumably attended mainly by our young population), the litter left behind on the floating platform gallery seats was really a sight to remember – it was appalling and frankly quite disgraceful. I am quite sure that the performers from Korea would have been shocked to see such an aftermath! The media gave good coverage on disappointed fans, but, nothing was mentioned about the mess left behind after the event.