Comments by "CV Hawkeye" (@cvhawkeye6255) on "Singapore's got talent for its Smart Nation push, but first it needs to bring some of them back home" video.

Sadly, Bala's approach to bring back Singaporeans is short term which would promote long term in-breeding of talent. For a small country like Singapore, talent in-breeding would saturate very quickly (ie multiple local markets everyone will soon know (inc their talents/skill/contacts) almost everyone else who is anybody in Singapore). A more long term and more sustainable approach would be to have greater outreach, to strengthen contacts with all Singaporeans who are already established overseas, use them as hubs for networks and contacts with overseas businesses of commerce both government and private sectors in their respective countries. With great respect, the Singapore Embassies around the world are not equipped to promote Singapore, commercial outreach is only mainly with big corps ... SME or individual contacts from a business perspective are almost remote. The embassies are no more than a place to deal with G services (passport renewals, visas etc). If not embassies, mini Singapore business/innovation hubs should be developed overseas grouped by semi or fully owned Singapore businesses to anchor Singapore Franchises wanting to expand overseas or to startup ... directly tap "Foreign" talent directly in their country ie bring Singapore to them, promote the top talent to positions in Singapore. That is how you draw the best into Singapore, its positive and pro-active with a greater global outreach, Bala has a rather limited national level concept, Singapore like it or not is a small island our possibilities will be capped sooner or later. Our Future commercial ambitions should not be limited to just our national landmass, our long term growth should be focused on greater outreach with a view to strengthen our core (ie Singapore).
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@RetardskillMe Well, I agree it would be hard or near impossible to attract established Singaporeans Overseas back even from a talent bidding/headhunting process (ie better ROI/salary which will be hard to compete in prime regions you highlighted, some of their stock options are in the region of many hundreds of thousands if not some exceptional Top Tier positions will be in the millions). Most of their talent/skills/contacts could also regress very quickly if they moved to Singapore esp when similar infrastructure (eg innovation atmosphere and their management/technical team they setup) is not there yet. So bringing talent back to Singapore generally does not work to their strengths, it could weaken them long term if they end up struggling if they are not taken care of (might be too much risk, some might have worked hard for years to establish themselves overseas). Bala's should be using their current strengths of being overseas, geographic or other intelligence to improve Singapore's outreach via these hubs, some could possibly open doors and create access for both themselves (which could be a nice carrot to Singaporean overseas to be motivated to help) and for others in Singapore to create a foothold or an anchor. These hubs could be long term secondment portals for Singaporeans to quickly get foreign exposure via employment or training via such Singapore own businesses overseas. These are far more pro-active approaches towards sustainable long term growth of Singapore and its citizens, and could create possibilities we have yet to develop. I think Bala scope of a Smart Nation can be broaden beyond our borders. Just thinking a little different.
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@RetardskillMe There are business and innovation hubs sprouting all over the world, most of them however are trying to regenerate mainly their own regional businesses. Is the EDB in touch with all of them. I bet you only a small number of their business development managers would have contacts to Singapore to even start collaborating let alone ask for Angel or VC funding (which certainly the US and Europe have greater access to) or even to identifying any cross needs (eg funding ave, contractors, manufacturers, developers, marketeers etc.). Proximity is key in both business development and network expansion even in today's communication age. Alot of Singaporean don't know the knowhow because almost all lack the geographical/business intel and the contacts to even start business planning (that's even before considering funding) because virtually all of them haven't been in the target country long enough. Try to even get an Angel invester or VC to even listen to your pitch, let alone fly 10k miles down to attend a board meeting for just seed/initial round funding ... it will never happen unless you know them personally very well. These foreign hubs are also hungry for collaboration, with the mutual goal to make the innovation process almost turn-key from cradle to grave. I am not worried about MNC's, if they are big enough they would already have internal infrastructure in est markets to support international collaboration across their branch offices. I am sure what I am presenting requires alot of ground work with alot of details that could still be discuss, It is just to offer some thoughts of the mechanics of business innovation/development that could bring more Singaporeans move forward internationally than just to expect talent to come to you and that the growth of the Singapore economy is to stubbornly draw talented bums on seat in Singapore offices. There are other ways to skin a cat. TY for your detailed reply its certainly food for thought.
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@gha9543 Social Engineering is going through a seachange ATM. The US election is certainly testing both social information as well as social disinformation along with censorship. Nobody likes disinformation so long as it remains false information. But alot of people will have concerns over truth/fact being portrayed/censored as disinformation by big tech or other authorities to protect a narrative or idealogy. I think Trump is watching this space very closely.
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@skychaos87 Foreign companies will never let Singaporeans have access to their core development processes or IP. They will always offer transferable generic mid-grade to low processes to locals eg admin, sales marketing, tech support, customer services etc. Even Singapore founded companies will do the same in IP protection to only their elite circle of the the company.
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@skychaos87 Well its folly to think they will teach you the latest and greatest, anything a foreign company will teach you would be enough for you to do the mule work (in virtually any discipline). So unless you have very unique secretly talent way beyond them (perhaps the guy who did some of the Matrix work), it is hard to compete. Companies like Dreamworks etc have the people with the know how, staff/team and latest equipment in place. So even if you come out on your own with funding support, it could take you years and by then what you have learnt could be out of date as they have deeper pockets to invest in more manpower and resource. I honestly can laugh at some of the opposition MPs during the election that they can suggest FTs will just simply tech transfer their skills openly to locals, sometimes our MPs can be so naive.
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