Research Team
Acknowledgements
This research project and report would not have been possible without the support of many people. We are grateful to all of them:
• Singapore Ministry of National Development (MND) and the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF), for funding our research through the Land and Liveability National Innovation Challenge (L2NIC).
• Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities (LKYCIC) and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), for supporting the research and administration.
• Economics Society of Singapore (ESS), for giving us an opportunity to co-develop an artefact of the future through their Economics and Society publication.
• KPMG, who opened a window to us to better appreciate the multi-faceted opportunities and challenges of digital disruption in the field of professional services and work.
• Royal Institution Of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), with whom we had several interesting discussions about the future, and also co-chaired a conference “Cities in a Digital World” at the World Cities Summit.
• Singapore Technologies Endowment Program, who partnered with LKYCIC/SUTD to organize workshops about the future for the international student delegates participating in the Ecosperity Young Leaders Dialogue (Ecosperity is an annual conference organized by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings).
• Victoria-Cedar Alliance (VCA), whose Imagineering Programme offered a glimpse into how they see the future.
We are also grateful to the following individuals who went out of their way to help us at various junctures in the research:
• Chow Jia Hui, Norakmal Hakim Bin Norhashim, Huang Jiayi, Madeline Wong, and Yoong Jia Jun, former SUTD students (and now alumni) who assisted with research, and provided insights into how they see the future.
• Professor Neo Boon Siong and Dr Lim Wee Kiat’s colleagues at Asian Business Case Centre, Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University.
• Akshay Rao and Tan Ning, who worked with us on early research into robotics.
• Eileen Tay, volunteer editor of the Economic Society of Singapore (ESS) publication Economics & Society.
• Tamsin Greulich-Smith, Chief — Smart Health Leadership Centre, National-University of Singapore-Institute for System Science (NUS-ISS).
• Jessica Bland and Lydia Nicholas, NESTA (UK National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts), for sharing on their experience with the use of personas and on people-powered health.
• Professor Seeram Ramakrishna, National University of Singapore, for his enthusiasm for the idea of the empathy suit and SuperCare which arose out of a workshop and subsequent discussions.
• Assoc Professor Ted Tschang, Singapore Management University, for sharing his experience and thoughts on design, design thinking, and relevant research in both.
• Kathleen Schwind, MIT sophomore who interned with the project during her exchange in SUTD.
• Ramu Uma and Aaron Poh, who interned for the project at various phases of the project.
• Malou Ko, who inspired with her dedication to design.
• Natalia Tan, who impressed with her dedication to detail.
• Assistant Professor Lyle Fearnley, Dr Corinne Ong, and Quek Ri An, from LKYCIC’s Sustainable Futures project (also funded by NRF and MND through the L2NIC) and Dr Andy Zheng from LKYCIC’s Smart Cities sub-unit (supported by the Chen Tianqiao Programme in Urban Innovation); together, we explored the impact of digital disruption and of the sharing economy on recycling tasks in the circular economy.
Across institutions and individuals, the generous sharing of expertise and time strengthened our project, and made Living Digital 2040 better.
Funding
This material is based on research/work supported by the Singapore Ministry of National Development and the National Research Foundation Singapore through Future of Cities project at Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, SUTD (Grant Number L2NICTDF1-2014-1).
Over and above this report Living Digital 2040, the funding also supported the following additional research/publications which informed our findings and conclusions for Living Digital 2040:
1) Presented
• Flexible Solar Textiles with Style for Future Smart Clothing System (Fiber Society conference 2016)
2) Accepted
• How Professionals Are Refashioning Their Craft Around Computerization: The Case of Accountis (extended abstract accepted for poster presentation at De Lange X Conference)
3) Planning/Preparation/Work-in-Progress
• Determining Technology Trends and Forecasts of Surgical Robots by Historical Review, Bibliometrics and Comparison Analysis from 1995 to 2015
• Analysing the Innovation Growth of Robotic Pets Through Patent Data Mining
• Towards Establishing Design Principles for Balancing Usability and Maintaining Cognitive Abilities
• EduBang: Envisioning the Next Generation Video Sharing
• Design Model of Wearable Smart Clothing with Multi Layering System
• HCI 2.0: Re-thinking Usability when Over-reliance on Technology Diminishes our Own Cognitive Abilities Over Time
• How Professionals Make Sense of the Future of their Profession and Career in the Context of Increasing Automation and Digitization
• Exploring the Future Usage Scenarios and Applications Using Wearable Technologies for Healthcare
Two of our artefacts from the future were also highlighted in the public domain:
• Lesson Design Map was published in the Economic Society of Singapore’s publication “Economics and Society Vol 1, 2016 — Man and Environment”. It shows how academic concepts and topics can be deconstructed and reconstructed to help students see connections between fast fashion, environment, economics and other school subjects.
• Empathy Suit was highlighted in Tabla! (a news publication) as an example of how smart fabrics might be used in future to create people-centered “wearables” that could help to bring people closer together.
The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this report (and additional research/publications) are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Singapore Ministry of National Development and the National Research Foundation Singapore.
How to cite this work:
Poon, K. W., Lee, H., Lim, W. K., Mohan, R. E., Chae, Y., Balasubramanian, G., Yong, W. K., & Yeong, W. W. (2016). Living Digital 2040: Future of Work, Education, and Healthcare. Singapore: Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University of Technology and Design.
Readers and researchers interested in the above can email us at lkycic@sutd.edu.sg.
Living Digital 2040: Future of Work, Education, and Healthcare 