Day One: CoreNet Global Singapore Summit

If you have joined us in Singapore for the CoreNet Global 2016 Asia Pacific Summit…welcome! The Summit launched this morning with Robert Guest, The Economist’s foreign editor, and Dr. Linda Yueh, London Business School and Peking University economist, providing their take on the Bigger Picture during the opening General Session. Navigating an interconnected world with shifting geopolitics is increasingly challenging. The amount of information available today is staggering, and the number of platforms that deliver this information continues to escalate. How should business leaders navigate so many variables? Mr. Guest and Dr. Yueh provided opportunities for attendees to ask questions as they contextualize the issues and offered real world examples on how these issues are impacting the business world right now and in the future.

A discussion highlight was how Brexit will negatively affect the European Union and the UK. Also covered was the idea that country debt-loads aren’t necessarily bad, and the importance of ending energy subsidies and how we may never actually run out of oil. Mr. Guest also struck an optimistic note that global income has doubled in the past 15 years. (Dr. Yueh and Mr. Guest pictured right)

The theme for this year’s Summit is The Big Picture: Geopolitics, Economics and the Environment, and day one of Summit sessions honed in on important focal topics of urbanism and communities. The Creating Vertical Communities session on Wednesday morning asked how we can create a sense of community in the ever-growing concrete jungles. The presentation was interactive and resulted in graphic artists producing a sketch of the comments made throughout the session. (pictured left)

The Singapore Hub co-working space was highlighted as an example of how to create a sense of community. Co-working spaces in Singapore have grown over the past couple of years from having only 1 startup to now boasting 58 in total. The presenters highlighted the need for increased diversity and creating metrics to measure intangibles within the workplace. Leaders need to be educated on why it’s important to have this ‘sense of place’ as the key to forming a vertical or cross-organizational co-working community. The concept of ‘soft power’ was introduced as an underpinning attribute of co-working. Soft power, being a law of appeal and attraction where workers can co-opt at will, versus hard power, which is a law of coercion and force. Communities are fundamentally built on the premise of soft power.

No Summit is complete without the entertainment of the Networking Reception and this year’s event was no exception. Great cuisine, a light show, and the company of accomplished professionals from around the globe wrapped up a great day.

One of the great benefits of attending a Summit is the exposure to ideas and thought leadership, delivered by a selection of creative minds and expertise from around the world. If there is a session that you would like to have attended today and didn’t, stay tuned in to future posts from The Pulse for a comprehensive list of presentations available in our Knowledge Center.

Thursday, 24 March:  Start day two of the Summit off with a Networking Coffee/Tea where you can meet up with others and map out the rest of your day as we dig into The Big Picture a little deeper.