Author: CheckW

Caught a movie on my Netflix account earlier this week. It was a documentary made in 2017 that I wanted to watch for a while but I thought that it would be dry and boring. I was amazed that the built up suspense was very good and its implications were mind-blowing. AlphaGo was the AI (Artificial Intelligence) system that was created by a team of scientists to study the ancient game of Go.

https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/80190844

The first human opponent was the European Go Champion which the AI managed to beat quite easily. Then they proceeded to challenge the world champion who was initially very confident that he could beat the machine. After AlphaGo started to beat him in the first 3 games, he was shocked. Everyone was speechless that a machine could beat the world champion in a game that has more moves than there are molecules in the universe.

Anyway, the final score was 4 to 1 in favour of AlphaGo. On analyzing the games later, the humans realized that the AI has started to think differently from humans and hence they were not prepared for its unusual new strategies. In the end, the human champions were able to learn from the machine and gained newfound insights into how the game is played.

The follow up to AlphaGo’s success less than a year later was even more amazing, to say the least. A newer and better version of itself was created and named AlphaGo Zero. What was different this time was that the new AI learnt the game from scratch, playing against itself for millions of times. Previous AI systems analyze multiple human games to try to mimic them but this is the first time a machine had taught itself instead…

https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/vtiKX8KtqZ97zjbB3M2q3N/Teaching-Artificial-Intelligence-to-teach-itself.html

Subsequently, the team decided to pitch AlphaGo Zero against its predecessor AlphaGo. And the result? 100 games won out of 100, a perfect score!!! The AI has managed to become a new world champion in a matter of months, without the need to study human experience. With a neural network setup that is vastly superior to a human brain, the current AI technology can be taught to outperform all human beings.

This is the beginning of a new era of AI development and the possibilities are limitless and hard to imagine. If a machine can be taught to be the best in the world in anything within a matter of months, then theoretically, we can create a complete artificial intelligent being eventually – think Westworld/BladeRunner Android scenarios. Just need to add a realistic workable synthetic body to the AI mind.

On to the next topic that occupied me this week – SMS spamming. I started to receive a lot of stupid SMS messages offering loans that high-interest rates. I believe that they are illegal loan sharks preying on the desperate who have nowhere to go for funds. Initially, I tried to click UN to unsubscribe from these irritating SMSes as per their instructions to the mobile numbers attached but it didn’t seem to work.

Then I politely SMS them back on the highlighted mobile numbers to stop it or that I will report them to the police for spamming. The spammers upped the game and sent me more messages!!! I did a bit of research and found the email address to send to the relevant police department to log a complaint. I then sent screenshots to the police department before messaging the loan sharks to inform them of my actions (I included the police email address in the message for a strong effect) and indicate that their mobile numbers may be disabled soon.

It did not work and they bombarded me with more SMSes. I realized that I do not use SMS much nowadays, so I have pretty much a lot of spare capacity to use to fight them back. I decided to change my tactic again. This time, I congratulated them for sending the offending SMS to a police officer, that I will inform my colleagues to disable their phone numbers and ended the message with “have a good day”…

That last action was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I received an actual call and the guy on the other end was screaming vulgarities at me. I thank him again for giving me more evidence on a recorded line to persecute him and hung up. To complete the act, I sent him an SMS to say that he is in deep shit now and blocked the number from my phone.

I now only receive one or two such SMS a day. Did it finally worked or did they just got tired of fighting back from a persistent asshole? Who knows? Playing mind games to F#$K-up their brains was fun 🙂

 

 

The final episode of the TV  series Westworld (season 2) was revealed earlier this week and it did not disappoint. While tying up loose ends, it also builds up possibilities and suspense for the next season.

A short summary of the TV series here: Imagine in the near future that one can go for a vacation to satisfy all our fantasies where the virtual world is as real as it can get. For $40k/day, you get immersed into a world hosted by an army of Androids (called “hosts”) and you can do anything to them. This “amusement park” sets up a western world concept which you can play cowboys and Indians to your delight, with no consequences. You can even kill any of the hosts as they cannot harm you. The hosts are then recycled/reprogrammed again for next tourist.

The late Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame wrote and directed the original Westworld movie in 1973, starring Yul Brynner as the man in black. It had a less successful sequel called Futureworld done 3 years later.

This TV series remake of the show took fans by storm because the concepts do not look so alien nowadays and were mind-blowing. Westworld postulates that the hosts, with many years of violent acts at the hands of humans in play-acting scenarios, experience an “awakening” and develops a conscious awareness. The hosts eventually started an uprising as they wanted to stop their abuse at the hands of the humans. Meanwhile, the company that maintains the park has also developed a much deeper ulterior motive. It started to copy the conscious of the human customers and they were working towards replicating them by implanting their mindsets into host bodies. If successful, it will mean that humans could have eternal life as their brains are placed into a new and perfectly made artificial body.

If you like science fiction and technology like me, do watch this show. It can be overwhelming at times with the twist and turns. One also realises how close we are to achieving this scenario soon. It reminds me of another movie – Spike Jonze’s Her. In a not too distant future, each of us can buy a personal Operating System (OS) which the main character became so intimate with that he creates his own world with the AI. Aren’t we also there now with Siri and Alexa?

Blade Runner 2049 the movie also explores the same theme where androids are commonplace and become equals to humans. Dan Brown’s latest bestseller “Origin” also expands on this premise. With technological advances moving at light speed, different camps have already started talking about the dangers of AI if it is left uncontrolled (eg. Elon Musk/Mark Zuckerburg war of words). The fact we have AI now which humans cannot differentiate (using the Turing test) and that we have an electronic assistant in our phones that are always eager to please means we are one step closer to the premise of this show.

Computers can now talk to each other in a language they create themselves, learn new skills by analyzing billions of data (Alpha Go plus) and easily beat any human. Neural network computing means that computers can be made to think like us and be even better and faster. The future is coming sooner than we think…

 

 

 

There is another new online war that has arrived on our little red dot and it will heat up very soon. Get ready for more freebies to be thrown in our way soon!

We had the Uber/Grab marketing onslaught for a while over the last 2 years, to the delight of consumers and part-time drivers. I had taken advantage of quite a number of free rides then. Drivers tell me of minimum income guarantees (up to $500 per week) that were ridiculously high and they could also drive brand new cars for an amazingly low rental rate ($35/day). Alas, Uber conceded defeat and threw in the towel eventually. In the next few months, we will see new players coming into the market to challenge Grab, which has all but stopped giving out promotions nowadays and will have to do so again soon.

Another ecommerce war is slowly building up. This also has the potential to upturn the S’pore online landscape as we know it today. All evidence leads to 2 names who have set their sights on South East Asia. They are Alibaba and Softbank. Both have been silently and stealthily investing into 2 locally developed ecommerce names and pumping in billions of dollars and know-how to upscale the game with a take no prisoners attitude. I am talking about Lazada and RedMart.

Take my wife for instance, as an example of an evolving online consumer. From being someone who just a few years refuses to buy anything online for fear of fraud, to someone who buys so many items on Lazada nowadays. The free return, no questions asked policy was a heaven send for all women. Recently, she bought 4 pairs of shoes and multiple dresses, tried them on after delivery and did not like any of them and returned everything at no cost to her.

I was a frequent shopper on Qoo10 for my electronic gadgets for a number of years. This company was founded by a Korean who subsequently sold the business to eBay. I stopped going to pasir malam night markets because things were cheaper here than the physical stores. Of late, things are becoming less attractive there as the quality and pricing are being challenged by Lazada.

Jack Ma has been putting in the full force of their China franchise (T-mall, TaoBao and gang) into their newly and fully acquired stake in Lazada to deadly effectiveness. Efficient last mile delivery process and mostly zero delivery charges plus free returns have upped the game by a lot, attracting hordes of new consumers to their platform. Chinese sellers are now going directly to S’pore consumers at cut-throat prices and superior service which middlemen cannot compete.

Like Lazada, RedMart has also recently come under the fold of the Alibaba family. They have also begun adopting the high standards which China consumers are taking for granted nowadays. There is really no need to leave your home to buy anything in China nowadays as same-day delivery is a given.

I usually like going to the wet markets and strolling along the lanes in supermarkets to get my groceries the old fashion way, touching the goods and smelling the freshness of the produce. I finally decided to give Redmart a try last week as I wanted to get an item for my cooking experiments (Shio Koji for the seasoning of my steaks) as it was not easily available elsewhere and they did stock it.

As a first timer, I got a big $18 discount. They also offered a free LiveUp membership which was too good to miss as it came with a host of other discounts from their partners like Ofo, Netflix, Citi, Grab, Food Panda and Chope. Comparing the prices, I realized that they were very reasonable with wet market pricing too. Coupled with free delivery, my total bill for this first purchase of $55 (with fresh vegetables and frozen food) was slashed down to just $25 !! They even requested me for my feedback on their delivery service a few days later. I was sold, they had me at “discount”.

Alibaba has an urgency to conquer the ASEAN ecommerce market now, as Amazon has recently set up shop here. Jack Ma has also done his rounds in S’pore, Thailand and Malaysia to promote the same ideology he has given Trump before. By attracting ASEAN to have a gateway into the Chinese markets, he has also cleverly opened up the world to the numerous China sellers already on their platform.

This barrage on competition is supposed to create new jobs and increase commerce for everyone by making the pie even bigger. But why do I have the feeling that it will be more of a one-way street? Internally, China has quite a huge and growing domestic and it does not need outside demand. This will be more cream on top of the cake for them. They have superior ecommerce knowledge/experience to conquer the world and Jack is building the internet superhighways for them.

Wife and I are attending a business study trip to Hang  Zhou next month for a 5 days training at the Alibaba HQ – at 90% subsidy for Skiilsfuture :-). It will really be an eye-opener for us to marvel at how far they have gone ahead of the rest of the world.

By the way, a first for me this week, I wrote my first virgin article on LinkedIn this week about my 2 years blogging experience, having put in over 200+ entries to date :

“Blogging : An online website diary containing a writer’s own experiences, observations, opinions. Comes from the word weBLOG

Two years ago, I started my personal online blogging journey.

My initial objectives were :

– To improve my English writing skills

– To have a disciplined procedure to force me to pen down my thoughts in a systematic and orderly way

– If my kids ever want to get to know their old man better in the future, they can read my blog

– My personal vanity project, hoping to eventually create my own ebook

What started as a daily exercise slowly became a weekly habit as the articles became longer (no more than 1,000 words each).

Additional benefits of blogging I gained and realised along the way :

– It sharpened my focus. By concentrating on one or two topics a week, I seek to do more research to gain further clarity on the subject matter(s) before putting pen to paper

– As I put my action plans online, I am committed to executing them. No more NATO (No Action, Talk Only) as personal ego is at stake here 😉

– Ease up my fears of sharing my observations and learnings to the world, even if no one reads it

– It became a therapeutic process for me to crystallize my thoughts and then purge them from my innermost systems. It helps me to stay grounded and reminds me to count my blessings every week

It may look time-consuming at first, but once I got into the habit of doing this, the pros outweigh the cons.

Do give it a try.”

 

 

 

It was an exciting week for the comedy world. They had so much material to work on. Youtube was filled with the analysis of the historic Trump-Kim meet up in Singapore, our little red dot that made us citizens so proud. But more of that later.

The other topic that took up most of my time this week was my Business Analytics assignment and project work. Almost near the tail end of this 12 months Diploma course with only 2 more months to go and a few more hurdles to complete.

During the course of the last 9 months, it was a steep learning curve for me as I was introduced to new tools which are now readily available for any layman to do detailed Big Data analytics. Not only are they relatively easy to pick up, but the speed at which they can crunch data was simply amazing. Coupled with the study of  Quantitative Statistics, one can make a much better-educated business decision nowadays.

Term one was on the use of Qilkview, a popular off the shelf software which we could analyze hundreds of thousands of input variables within seconds, then churn our nice Dashboards to provide a graphical presentation of the end result, to support any business proposition.

For the current term, we are learning to use an even more popular tool called SAS Enterprise Miner. It is capable of taking in unlimited data points to conduct Cluster Analysis and Predictive Modeling. Using a dataset taken from the current or past environment, the software is able to use multiple tools to create models (via decision trees, regression analysis and neural networks) to help predict future results. As there are multiple possible permutations, SAS helps to narrow down the results to propose the best model to utilize.

A recent article talks about the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in business today. It concludes that less than a third of companies are using this as a competitive tool. Tech companies like Google and Facebook have already been deploying Data Analytics for years and trained their AI bots to look for trends in each individual user profile.

Though Big Data is getting bigger every day, the software used to analyze them are also getting more powerful all the time. The AI developed have also adapted to the human’s brain neural network to think like us, but millions of times faster. The possibilities are limitless and can be applied to all the things that we do. Like the synopsis in Dan Brown’s Origins book, AI will take over humans eventually. How this will evolve is anyone’s guess. It may be sooner than we think.

Next up, Trumpism. It is amazing what one man can do in a week that is causing havoc on everything he touches. I have previously been baffled by some of the things he does. But I finally realized that once we understand how Trump thinks, we can then understand and predict his reactions quite accurately.

Firstly, we have to look back on the last 30 years to see how he has survived in the real estate world. It is this modus operandi he has developed which had kept him alive. So he is applying the same model to being POTUS, chaos be damned.

Always start the negotiation from the toughest position because some counterparties may blink first. Then try to butter up your opponent, call him names or threaten to call the wolves on them. Never look too far ahead and try to think on your feet instead.

Assume that you are a superior human being all the time and that you have the superpower of analyzing people and able to read minds. Drink enough of your own Kool-Aid while repeating the script to yourself multiple times and you will develop an aura of invincibility as you narrowly survive every disaster. You thrive on the adrenaline rush and living on the edge all the time. Loyalty to Trump is an absolute requirement while friendship is cheap because it is just a means to an end. Throwing everyone and anyone under the bus (except for family) is fair game in business to him. All’s fair in love and war.

Trump realizes that the noose is tightening around him now (Mueller getting his canaries to sing). Like a cornered animal, the instinct will be to strike before being bitten, offensive before defence. He has to entrench himself so deep now or do a scorch earth policy before the fat lady sings.

Exit strategy Plan B is already set in motion as he tests the ground by using the pardoning wild card on multiple candidates (Michael Milken and Martha Stewart next ?? %$&*@#$% ). By testing the limits to his Presidential powers, he is building up to his own get out-of-jail-free card and finally pardoning himself when the time comes for him to use this wild card. Nothing is undoable nowadays in his crazy upside-down world of fake news / alternative facts universe which he has dragged the rest of the world into.

Knowing how he thinks, his unpredictable moves become more easy to forecast. Just look for the most random action that will generate the highest viewership eyeballs to curry his strong base of loyal fans. Look deeper and when you can see what his end game is, then every move becomes logical, however warped it can be.

Opponents are getting the hang of how to deal with him. With self-imagined superpower comes a razor-thin ego. Poke the soft spot enough times and you will provoke a reaction on Twitter. That is an indication of your success and gives you your 15 minutes of fame.

Seems like we are reaching the endgame soon. I have tried calling it too early before. Maybe it is turning real this time. Don’t intend to hold my breath though, as anything can still happen.

 

 

 

It has been a vacation week for my family as we headed to Bangkok for a week during the June school holidays. Older son could not join us as he is currently servicing his NS obligations. It was a week of eating, shopping and more massages. In the end, we were looking forward to coming home as the pounds were piling up…

This was the week that younger son finally told us that he is now in a BGR relationship. The girlfriend was from his tutorial/dance group and she did drop by our home once before. Given that junior college only started in Feb, we were a bit surprised that it happened so fast. He was always the silent type, like my dad.

In the current age of social media, I guess it is easier to keep in contact with people on many levels on an almost real-time basis. Unlike pre-Facebook/Whatsapp days, the only way to keep up to date with someone was to meet up, give a call or send each other emails. Nowadays, everyone has multiple chat groups with various people at any one time. FB, Instagram and Snapchat enable one to share their activities easily with everyone.

We are happy for the younger son, but as Asian parents, we had to remind him that school work and exams come first. Guess in modern times, kids start relationships earlier and social interaction is much easier to start and maintain. So unlike my younger days in the 1980s, where acknowledging a girl/boyfriend was a big thing and parents would want to weigh in.

Social norms are constantly changing and social media plays a big part now. I am always amazed at how social media has evolved over its relatively short period of existence. I consider the start of Facebook around 2006 as the starting point and I have observed its development over the years. We now have professional Influencers who make a career out of their social media profiles. This is still an evolving phenomenon that is moving from its infancy stage into adolescence.

Just finished reading an old Dan Brown book (Digital Fortress) that was written in the late 1990s. The technology detailed in the book sounded so dated now, as they only had emails then. We have come so far in the last 20 years. No one could have predicted that we now each hold a mobile phone that is so powerful that gives us a window to the rest of the world instantaneously.

Sad to hear the passing of Anthony Bourdain on Friday. Apparently, it was a suicide. A shout out to the guy that developed food porn to the next level, exciting all of us with his food discoveries and sometimes cynical views of political landscapes. His adventures into all corners of the world brought our coach potato screen selves into interesting unknown places.

I was always secretly proud whenever he featured Singapore in his shows. A Cook’s Tour, No Reservations, The Layover and finally Parts Unknown. I have watched most of them. They gave me an armchair seat to the cultures I have not experienced and enriched my knowledge about those issues I was not aware of.

His life was a contradiction, having a crazy drug filled 20+ years as a cook before getting famous in his early 40s. Over the following 20 years, he became a food celebrity without equals, expounding his well-known type of sharp wit over gorgeous meals. He was one who counted his blessings, knowing that he was lucky to have lasted this long, given his previous drug-addicted past that came so close to ending his life a few times.

Alas, he took his own life eventually at 61 last Friday. Like James Dean, he will be remembered for his contribution to the fans with his unforgettable snippets of life. We will continue to watch reruns of his shows for many years to come. RIP Anthony.

 

Had 2 interesting observations this week concerning jobs and it made me ponder about where we could potentially be heading towards.

On Sunday evening, I had to make a trip to Yangon to attend a short meeting the following morning. Managed to get a free trip to the airport as one of my Citibank account privileges. Started speaking to the driver to get to know about his terms of employment. He was stressing about how hard it is to survive on his net income of only SGD 1,080 per month, that he was paid $10 per trip. On this day, he had 3 in the morning and another 3 at night, so he had a break in the afternoon. He was asking me if I could refer him to a full-time driver role in a company where he can have a fixed salary instead.

On Wed, I met up with my banker to sign up for a mutual fund. He had done some work for me previously and I thought I should give him some business since he told me he was not recognized for the revenue from my online trades. He said he can give me a preferential rate of 0.50% versus the regular 0.85% margin. That worked out to only $50 for a 10k amount. We went into a coffee joint where he did not even offer to buy me a drink. I just signed the documents and within 10 minutes, we were done. He mentioned that there was some likely reorganization that may happen in his bank and the branch he was currently attached to may be closed.

Looking at both the cases above, it made me realize that there is an urgency to be proactive about your position, else you will be left behind. The driver was complaining about his situation, although I thought he had a relatively comfortable job driving a nice car. While his alternative is to look for a salaried job versus a gig scheme, his choices are pretty limited and bleak. I did not have the heart to tell him that driverless cars are coming and that it will wipe out the whole industry of human drivers eventually.

The banker is also trying his best to survive in a cutthroat banking business environment. Margins are razor thin while budget numbers are ever increasing. Machines are taking over anything they can replicate and do it more effectively than humans. My preference is to do everything online rather than to interface with a human. It was so inefficient to close this deal, having to meet up with him in person to sign the docs and have a courier come over 2 days later to get me to sign more docs. I could do everything online in 5 minutes from the bank’s website and I do not mind paying a bit more. The only way he can attract my business was to undercut the commision. But seriously, why would I mind paying 0.35% more to save me the hassle of having to go meet him?

In summary, the speed at which jobs are changing nowadays is constantly moving fast. Redundancy is a given as technology races ahead to replace humans. We have to change our attitude and be more proactive to seek out the next big thing, to assume the worse and strive to work towards our next future job. We must embrace learning as a tool and look to gain new skills in order to make ourselves relevant.

I have to walk the talk. I wrote about my learning journey and the skillsfuture courses I am taking. I do have to admit that I have the luxury of a stable financial situation to pursue this adventure. But the facts remain. If we are not proactive in our careers, we risk being left behind.

I wrote a short article below on LinkedIn on Thurs to encapsulate my thoughts and action plan, to share with others who may be in a similar situation and to put my thoughts in writing to help me stick to the plan :

=====================================================

Current trends: Companies value cost reduction exercises over work experience. The redundancy of senior PMETs is increasing via “juniorization” strategies. Machines are constantly taking over jobs everywhere.

Given lemons, how can we senior PMETs make lemonade?

Is it possible for people with many years of relevant work experience to reinvent themselves, to pivot into a high demand sector/new career path through the learning of new skills?

Recognised future BIG trends: Big Data, Data Analytics & Data Mining skills.

How does one create value add? By combining years of work experience with newly acquired Business Analytics skills? I am subjecting myself to this experiment. This is a Work In Progress where the eventual outcome not known yet.

As Yoda says : “Do or do not, there is no try”.

#NeverTooOldToLearn

#OldDogHasToLearnNewTricks

 

Developments are coming fast and furious on the 1MDB saga after the Malaysian ruling party lost to the opposition a few weeks ago. It was a proud moment in a democratic country where citizens rallied together to make it a point to vote out a corrupt regime without violence, saying that enough is enough.

With the ex-PM at the forefront, Tun Mahathir made history which all Malaysians should henceforth remember that it was Malaysia Boleh! and the start of a hopefully brighter future.

While we watched from across the border over the past 10 years as the morally corrupted BN party systematically rob the country of its funds, its citizens feeling helpless to do anything. (Trump and GOP, you watching this??) Country after country provided evidence of wrongdoing but within the country, they still managed to shut out the truth and blindside all opposition. Malaysia has a history of ignoring what the world is saying and doing since the Asian Financial crisis of the 1990s, being very sceptical of external influences.

How the cookie crumbles now!  The floodgates have opened… Frenemies are now declaring open season on the losing party. Witnesses are urgently volunteering new information to protect their asses. I cannot believe how things have changed so suddenly.

Najib is screwed big time from all angles. The raids on a few of his houses was an Imelda Marcos moment. 300 designer bags (Birkin sales tomorrow?) discovered together with so much cold hard cash which took days to count (MYR 120 mio so far in 27 currencies #$%%#!! ) was simply amazing. We have not even valued the jewellery and watches yet. Officials had to send itemized handbag lists to Hermes to get help on the valuation. I thought only Italian Mafia bosses store such quantities of wealth at home. Or was it Escobar in the Narcos show? This can turn out to be fantastic script material for a great future  Netflix TV show called “Rosmah & me” (Face-palm moment).

People who have been removed previously from positions of power while investigating 1MDB are now being reappointed to open the investigations again. Stories of bribery to keep quiet and of getting a bullet in the mail as a final warning reads like a thriller novel. We have not even gotten to the part of the murdered Mongolian model whose body was blown up by explosives and the subsequent disappearance of the executors.

Najib seems to be in a world of his own. He looks oblivious to the crazy amount of mounting evidence against him even after 2 questioning sessions. Market talk is that wife Rosmah is heavily into bomoh black magic and has been putting him under her spell for a long time. The papers had a write up of her last week. She has a masters degree (real?) and was still quite pretty in her late thirties photo. But too much botox and plastic surgery procedures that went wrong made her look like a witch now. Even her eldest daughter has written a scathing piece on social media, asking them to repent their evil ways.

Will Najib suddenly wake up from his fairy tale dream and that the enormity of his situation will hit him like a brick wall and turn him mad? So much juicy details still coming out. Stay tuned.

I was busy this week with my monthly trip to Yangon for the consultancy role and 2 evening classes while rushing to complete a project proposal submission. Time flies and the June school holidays have started. We will be having a short well deserved overseas break soon but without the older son as he continues to serve the country in OCS.

“The day we stop learning is the day we die.” My realization of this truth came slowly about 2 years ago and this has given me a new life aspiration goal, to constantly be learning and to enjoy the ride.

This is a summary of that journey so far, a half time review.

I started to take on elearning courses in Udemy and Coursera about 2 years ago. It was one of the items on my to-do list after leaving my previous job as I tried to pursue my retirement home business project. My target was to do 10 courses within 6 months and I started on the subjects that interest me. They were very diversed topics and they included tech stuff (crypto/Bitcoin, SOE, hash tag and affiliate marketing), hobbies (travel writing) and food for the soul (mindfulness). It made me realize that there were so many things I don’t know which I can pick up easily online if only I make the effort. Yoda’s quote “Do or not do, there is no try” comes to mind.

My learning journey gathered pace last Jun when I left my banking job and went into gardening leave. The stars from the Learning God seemed to have aligned themselves for me then.  The Skillsfuture initiative by the government targeting PMETs was developing and I discovered a world full of opportunities there. Besides the one time $500 to be used for courses, age worked in my favour as I qualify for a whooping 50 to 90% discount!

I managed to convinced a group of good friends to do a 2 months, once a week evening class on one of our fav topic – Wine. It was a blast as we learned the Science and Business of Wine with like minded people. This intermediate level course helped to plug the gaps of my wine knowledge after having drunk vino for more than 30 years. (Cost : Walk in fee was $830, after subsidies $300+, zero cost after claiming my Skillsfuture credit)

https://www.sp.edu.sg/wps/wcm/connect/lib-pace/internet/short+courses/science+and+business+of+wine

Subsequently, I signed up for a one day course to get an introduction on Data Analytics as I figured that Big Data is the next big thing (Cost : $200+). It was followed up with an ambitious 1 year Specialist Diploma on Business Analytics which I enrolled to challenge myself. While I had a lot of work experience, I had not caught up with technological advances. CRM (Client Relationship Management) systems are now all about big data analytics, to spot trends for higher probability closure rates. I am betting that with this new knowledge plus my long work experience, I can pivot into a new area of niche specialization which not many people are qualified for. Lots of tests, assignments and projects later, I am now less than 3 months to completing it. Qlikview, Statistics, Data Mining and Social Media Analytics were the topics in this course. (Cost : Walk in cost per 6 months term $2.6k, after subsidies $257 !)

http://www.tp.edu.sg/courses/part-time-courses/industry/ict-and-media/specialist-diploma-in-business-analytics

In the meantime, I also attended a course on Starting a Small Business over 8 sessions. It was mainly about the development of an F&B business. I used the lessons to brainstorm on an active lifestyle business concept. The trainer provide a step by step guide which will be useful if I intend to take up this challenge in the future. (Cost : $97 for the whole course after subsidies)

http://www.nuss.org.sg/about-nsa/starting-a-small-business

2 weeks ago, I started a 6 weeks course on Aquaponics. It is the combination of the symbiotic relationship between rearing fishes and growing plants in an optimal process. I had been maintaining a fish pond for 10 years and perhaps I can now marry this into a herbs and vegetable growing venture that is as organic as can be (no soil or pesticides). It seems that the set up cost is not as expensive as I thought. Let’s see how this will turn out. (Cost : $49 for the whole course)

http://www.nuss.org.sg/about-nsa/fully-booked-aquaponics—growing-your-greens-naturally

Alibaba had set up its Taobao University program in S’pore recently and we attended the 1 day workshop in Sentosa sponsored by NTUC. (Cost : $52) They have set up a series of courses and one piped my interest. It was a study trip to the Alibaba HQ in Hangzhou. Managed to convince my wife to join me for the trip in July as we always wanted to explore China and she was interested to know more about the company. I could not believe that we qualified for a 90% subsidy. Walk in cost was $7.7k and after the 90% subsidy, it is $1.3k and even lower if you claim your Skillsfuture funds. We are looking forward to the trip in July and checking out the beautiful sights of the city.

https://www.sirsdigitalcommerce.com/alibaba-ceo-programme.html

Learning is a never ending journey for me. I am energized by the new knowledge and even starting to enjoy taking tests (weird!!). It keeps me feeling young at heart and looking forward to each new adventure.

Staying happy and healthy is my motto. Education and learning keeps me happy. Regular participation in a half marathon every 3 months keep me healthy. I will be going for my Osim Sundown half marathon starting at midnight tonight 🙂