#87- Ex Straits Times Chief Editor on LKY's Ideas, Singapore's Literacy Paradox And Why You Must Read

#87- Ex Straits Times Chief Editor on LKY's Ideas, Singapore's Literacy Paradox And Why You Must Read

Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with former Chief Editor of Straits Times- Warren Fernandez. Warren Fernandez is a journalist, editor, and public intellectual whose career spans more than three decades at the centre of Singapore's media landscape. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Straits Times — Singapore's flagship English daily — and is perhaps best known beyond journalism as one of the principal collaborators on several of Lee Kuan Yew's landmark books, including The Man and His Ideas and The Singapore Story. His close working relationship with Mr. Lee gave him an unusually intimate vantage point on Singapore's founding generation and the ideas that shaped the nation's development.After leaving the Straits Times, he served as Edelman's APAC CEO from 2022 to 2025. Fernandez joined the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), where he is now engaged in research on world order and the shifting dynamics of great power competition. He is also the author of What We Read and Why, an anthology in which leaders, educators, and young people reflect on their relationship with books and reading, making the case for literacy as both a life skill and a civic responsibility.In this conversation, Fernandez draws together threads from an exceptionally varied career: the craft of communicating ideas, the media's role in a small state, the mechanics of world order, and why the capacity to read carefully and think critically has never mattered more.YOUTUBE TIMESTAMPS0:00 Trailer0:00 Introduction0:53 Working on Lee Kuan Yew's Books4:10 LKY as a Force of Nature5:56 The Statesman Behind the Politician6:11 LKY as Communicator6:56 Singapore's Media Model9:03 Journalists and Power10:02 How to Prepare Like a Journalist12:00 LKY's Enduring Ideas13:15 The Transition to Digital Media16:38 The Real Value of Reading18:47 Reading and the Average Citizen21:01 Singapore's Literacy Paradox23:48 Use It or Lose It25:24 Reading as a Life Skill27:32 How to Build a Reading Movement29:46 AI, Sam Bankman-Fried, and the Case for Deep Reading32:15 Reading and Civic Duty34:00 How Top Leaders Read36:57 Young People Do Read38:54 A Masterclass on How to Read Today42:46 Reading and Geopolitics48:01 What Comes Next?49:37 Singapore's Value Proposition52:49 The GX World53:48 Three Imbalances Nobody Is Fixing58:29 Three Books Every Singaporean Should ReadThis is the 87th episode Of The Front Row PodcastA huge thank you to our amazing Front Row Friends for supporting and advancing the podcast: @marinama2728@deborahchoi1455@annkowong@yewchoutan5876Full transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

#86- Ha-Joon Chang : Why We Need A New Global Economic Order

Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with Hajoon Chang. Ha-Joon Chang is a South Korean economist and one of the most widely read critics of neoliberal orthodoxy working today. He is currently a professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is best known for his book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, published in 2010, which challenged the foundational claims of free-market economics with rigorous historical and empirical argument. His earlier work, Kicking Away the Ladder, demonstrated how today's rich countries used protectionism and industrial policy to develop — before turning around and telling developing nations to liberalise.Chang's research spans developmental economics, the history of economic thought, and the political economy of globalisation. He has been a vocal proponent of what he calls "non-mainstream" economics: not a single doctrinal school, but a pluralist approach that draws on institutional, Keynesian, and developmentalist traditions to analyse how economies actually grow and change. In this conversation, Chang offers a sweeping critique of neoliberalism's track record on growth and inequality, a dispassionate assessment of Donald Trump's industrial policy ambitions, and a pointed analysis of the AI boom as a speculative bubble shaped by concentrated wealth rather than genuine demand. TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Trailer 1:08 Introduction 1:54 Growing Up in South Korea's Economic Miracle 4:36 Why Ha-Joon Chang Is Not "Heterodox" 4:58 The Gwangju Massacre and the Limits of Neoclassical Economics 10:45 How the Neoliberal Turn Happened 18:32 The Real Cost of the Free-Market Experiment 25:20 Why Singapore Works 29:58 Trump's Industrial Policy: Will It Work? 37:50 The Three Elements of Good Industrial Policy 40:54 The Right Lessons From China 44:44 How Bad Is Inequality in the US? 53:18 The AI Bubble 58:36 AI as Public Infrastructure 1:00:48 How to Build a More Just World 1:06:14 Closing

#85- GovTech CTO on The Secret Behind Singapore's World Class Digital Infrastructure

Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with Chang Sau Sheong. Sau Sheong Chang is the Chief Technology Officer of GovTech Singapore, the government agency responsible for Singapore's national technology infrastructure and digital public services. In this role, he oversees the development and maintenance of platforms that underpin daily life for millions of Singaporeans — from SingPass, the national digital identity system, to Parents Gateway, CDC vouchers, and the Culture Pass.Sau Sheong brings an unusual combination of deep private-sector experience and long public-service commitment to his work. He began his technology career at the National Computer Board in 1997, left in 1999 to found his first startup, and spent the intervening decades in startups and large technology companies before returning to public service — first as one of the earliest Smart Nation Fellows, and subsequently as a full-time GovTechie.In this conversation, recorded at a community event co-organised by SuperAI, Carta, and Singapore Global Network, Sau Sheong speaks candidly about Singapore's 40-year arc of digital transformation, the buy-versus-build dilemma at the heart of government technology strategy, GovTech's adoption of AI tools including Claude Code for classified systems, and what the AI disruption actually looks like from inside one of the world's most advanced digital governments.TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Introduction1:58 Why Singapore's Digital Edge Isn't an Accident5:45 How GovTech Attracts World-Class Engineers6:33 From Startup Founder to CTO: Sau Sheong's Journey9:44 The Projects Behind Singapore's Digital Infrastructure12:32 Buy vs. Build: The Government's Hardest Dilemma18:39 How GovTech Is Adopting AI19:05 Claude Code for Classified Systems24:54 How GovTech Prioritises AI Deployment Across Agencies28:35 AI Anxiety: Advice for Young Professionals34:13 ClosingThis is the XX episode Of The Front Row PodcastFull transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

#84- Kishore Mahbubani: How The Future Of Global Order Will Look Like

Kishore Mahbubani is one of Asia's most prominent public intellectuals — a former diplomat, academic, and author whose career spans decades at the intersection of geopolitics, philosophy, and statecraft. He served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations on two occasions and as President of the UN Security Council, before becoming the founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS. He is the author of several widely read books on the shifting global order, most recently Has China Won? In this conversation — filmed live in front of an audience of young leaders curated with the National Youth Council — Mahbubani ranges across the Iran-Israel war and the misreading of Persian civilisational logic, the structural weaknesses of multilateral institutions and who is actually responsible for them, the enduring miracle of ASEAN in the world's most diverse region, and the iron law of geopolitics that makes the US-China contest essentially mechanical. He closes with a characteristically optimistic verdict on Singapore's place in history and what the next generation of leaders must understand to navigate the crossfire that is coming. Chapters 0:00 Trailer1:08 Introduction1:42 Singapore's Sixty Years of Peace3:05 The MacDonald House Incident5:00 How Singapore Repaired Relations With Indonesia7:46 The Iran-Israel War8:48 How Israel Sold Trump a Quick War11:27 Why Iran Didn't Surrender12:26 The Strait of Hormuz as a Weapon14:38 Gaza and the Two-State Solution16:00 How Gaza Damaged the West's Standing18:26 Israel's Military Dominance Won't Last Forever21:09 How Young Singaporeans Should Read the Crisis21:42 Don't Get Emotional — Get Rational23:24 Who Actually Weakened the UN24:09 The Hypocrisy of Western Complaints About the UN29:30 How Singapore Can Use Multilateral Platforms31:56 The Iron Law of US-China Competition33:57 How China Found Its Weapon36:02 ASEAN's Imperfections — and Why That's Fine39:37 ASEAN Outgrew the EU42:09 Q&A43:17 The Case for the UN Veto45:15 Why the UK Should Give Its Seat to India47:30 Sunrise vs Sunset Organisations — BRICS and the G752:15 ASEAN's Limits — and Its Quiet Power56:02 The Long-Term Fallout From the Iran War58:20 Is International Law a Sunrise or Sunset Trend?1:02:46 Singapore's Founding Realist Principle1:04:32 The Malacca Toll, the UAE, and the GCC1:09:32 One Piece of Advice for Young Leaders1:10:04 The Singapore Miracle in World History1:13:00 Prepare for the Crossfire1:13:51 Closing This is Episode 84 of The Front Row Podcast. Full transcripts are at ykeith.com/tag/podcast/ Join the conversation in the comments, or find us here: Instagram: instagram.com/frontrow.65LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/keith-yapWebsite: ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.co [keith@frontrow65.co]

#83- Expert Investor : "This Is Southeast Asia's AI Endgame" (Dimitra Taslim)

Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with Dimitra Taslim.Dimitra Taslim is seasoned tech investor and currently, serves as a Venture Partner at Granite Asia. Before Granite Asia’s spinout and rebrand from GGV Capital Asia, Dimitra was part of the investment team at GGV Capital, where he helped source and support investments across emerging Asian markets. His work at Granite Asia reflects the firm’s broader thesis of supporting ambitious Asian founders through long-term capital, operational support, and access to cross-border networks.Dimitra brings a blend of investor and operator experience. Prior to venture capital, he worked in private equity and growth investing in London, and also founded a digital wealth startup. His background gives him a strong focus on execution, operational scale, and founder-market fit — especially in businesses solving infrastructure and productivity challenges in Asia.This is the 83rd episode Of The Front Row PodcastFull transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400