Nordic Technology Solutions in the Asian Context – Enabling Conscious Living in Asia

My keynote address at the Nordic Green Dialogue held at the Singapore International Energy Week 2017, Friday 27th of October 2017.

Good morning Excellencies and distinguished guest.

I have been given the simple task of articulating the perspective around Nordic technology solutions in the Asian context. A task at one level seems simple enough when I agreed to be standing here in front of you this morning; but the more I thought about it, the more it challenged me to think that this can’t be just about “come to Asia and sell your wares because we are home to 4.4 billion people spread across 46 countries with about 3 billion in China, India and South East Asia alone and have experienced 5% economic growth on average across Asia”, there must be more to Asia than just a widget sales ground.

Asia is also home to nearly half of the world’s poorest people, rendering poverty a key issue to be addressed. According to World Bank’s report in 2016, of the 766 million extremely poor who live below the poverty line of US$1.9 a day, about 33% live in South Asia and 9% live in East Asia and the Pacific. Whilst in the same breath Ernst and Young estimates there are 525 million middle class by global standards. And it is further estimated that by 2030 Asia will have two thirds of the global middle class which will exceed more than a billion people globally.

What is then the aspiration of the middle class or higher for themselves, their families and the community they live in and for the poor that lives around them? What can the Nordic experience bring to the table that will positively impact the lives of Asians?

The "Social Progress Index" collates the scores of three main indexes:

1. Basic Human Needs, which includes medical care, sanitation, and shelter.
2. Foundations of Well being, which covers education, access to technology, and life expectancy.
3. Opportunity, which looks at personal rights, freedom of choice, and general tolerance.

The Nordic countries are generally considered to unambiguously refer to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, including their associated territories. Although I do note that Iceland is not represented here today, all five countries feature in the top 10, scoring more than 88 points out of 100.

10th. Iceland — 88.45. Speaking of beautiful countries, Iceland scores very well in social progress, particularly in the "basic human needs" index and GDP per capita. Its football team has proven itself a force to be reckoned with too with its entry into the World Cup in 2018!

7th. Norway — 88.70. Norway is big on "nutrition and basic medical care," and its "access to basic knowledge" is strong too. Many have said the Norway model is one to follow for a non-EU UK 

6th. Sweden — 88.80. "Water and sanitation" may be taken for granted in developed economies, but it is not enjoyed everywhere. Luckily it is an area Sweden nails, scoring 99.77. The country also picks up high scores in "nutrition" and "personal rights."

3rd. Denmark — 89.39. Denmark has one of the best social mobility and income equality rates in the world, so no surprise it makes it into the top three on this list. "Basic human needs" is where the country scores particularly highly.

1st. Finland — 90.09. Everyone says Nordic nations have the highest standard of living, and now Finland has made it official. It scores highly on almost every index on the report, from basic needs, foundations of well being and personal freedoms. If you move there just make sure to bring warm coat — temperatures can reach minus 50 Celsius in the winter!

Only Australia, New Zealand feature in the top 10 with Japan coming in at #15 representing the Asian countries.

So collectively the Nordics score high on “basic human needs”, "nutrition and basic medical care," "access to basic knowledge", "Water and sanitation", "nutrition" and "personal rights", “social mobility and income equality”, and “personal freedoms”

Asia cannot just aspire to be a “me too” with respect to the Nordic achievement. At this juncture, for the sake of extending our aspirations as an Asian, I would like to take the liberty to propose an Index that I would like to see more relevant to Asia. I believe that an Index that measures the level of Conscious Living is definitely something I would advocate.

Conscious living to me means making informed decision to ensure minimization of waste of all available resources and the protection of the disadvantaged and marginalized, thus enhancing the quality of life for all.

So my problem statement to all of us here today is how can Nordic technology enable conscious living in Asia? That would be the future state context for Asia.

The opportunity across Asia cuts across multiple domains from energy to healthcare to the circular economy. And there essentially two groups in society that need different level of solutions, and they are the poor and those in the middle class and beyond.

For energy it is not just about building more solar farms, hydroelectric dams, wind farms, and biomass digesters, it must be about enabling the middle class consumers to be informed and make the conscious choice of having access to renewable energy. It must also be about providing information and insights to ensure energy is not wasted and utilized in a smart way. It must be about enabling to share excess energy in an equitable way that benefits the community without compromising on its economic viability. Essentially energy systems must be integrated at a system level together with the consumer enabled by digitalization.

The energy transition story is being told across the globe. For the 120 million people in South East Asia i.e. 90% in Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, without electricity, they are hoping for any form of energy. Energy access is their burden and therefore new business models are needed to increase the pace and scale of delivering electricity to them. One off microgrid pilots doesn’t help the majority living in darkness.

Smart Microgrid systems that enable the meshing of heterogeneous microgrids with bidirectional flow of energy will increase the pace of electrification in rural Asia. These smart microgrids need the right business model beyond just selling equipment. We have the technology but do we have the right business model to make it happen at pace and scale? Is Microgrid-as-a-service (MaaS) an option with pay-as-you-use model? Can the microgrid stimulate local industry creating interdependent communities that exchange goods and services?

This also applies to water and sanitation. More than 140 million people in South-east Asia lack access to safe drinking water, while nearly a billion have no access to basic sanitation.

At one level for those with access to water, the water reaching the homes of each consumer should be monitored for quality either indicating contamination from the source, cross contamination from other systems or even from the piping systems that are not maintained properly. Water leakage and wastage monitoring devices must be part of the solution space. What systems can be installed to harvest rain water that add to water conservation or even harvest the humidity in the air? How can this excess water benefit the community at large within the vicinity of each consumer? And at another level, how can we effectively bring clean water to the poor in Asia? How can innovation around the Energy-water nexus help make a stronger economic case for system level solutions?

Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted. Fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food. In developing countries food waste and losses occur mainly at early stages of the food value chain and can be traced back to financial, managerial and technical constraints in harvesting techniques as well as storage and cooling facilities. Strengthening the supply chain through the direct support of farmers and investments in infrastructure, transportation, as well as in an expansion of the food and packaging industry could help to reduce the amount of food loss and waste. With more than 700 million people in Asia who are in poverty, these potential food related solutions would create a significant impact.

With respect to the growing Asian middle class, better management of food stocks at home to reduce unnecessary waste using smart domestic “stock” keeping technology to enable prudent buying and consumption practices.

There is a growing pressure for hospitals to focus on acute medical care and have long term care to move out either into the homes or special purpose facilities. A rapidly aging population with increased immobility and incapacitation due to diseases like diabetes and stroke is creating a constraint on the health care system.

Are there technological solutions that makes home care for chronic conditions viable, reliable and effective? How does wearable sensor technology enhance home centric semi-professional or self-administered medical care?

The impact on education on social mobility cannot be understated. However education is riddled with its own issues as every system will have outlier that don’t fit the “equation” as Einstein so famously said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

The question for Asia is how do we bring basic education to everyone like we want to do for energy, water, health care and food? Are there system level solutions that will enable these simultaneously? Are smart micro-grids coupled with innovative business models be a plausible answer to fire up energy dependent needs and close these gaps?

The sharing economy is a good idea to reduce over production and under-utilization of scarce resources. Enabling platforms to build a sharing community which enhances a community spirit of trust and care for each other is also a key aspect of conscious living. We already see this happening in transportation. What else? Common bookstore? Common tool store? Common sports equipment store? What aspect of behavioral science do we need to engage the community with? Adopt the Nudge theory?

Another key area that would shift the needle is the aspect of building and driving a circular economy. How do we design products, process and systems that would easily energize the circular economy? Therefore minimizing waste and the need for new resources? How do we nudge consumers to demand for products that support the circular economy? What technologies can we deploy that will support the objectives of a circular economy? In cities that are space and resource constrained, the circular economy will provide relief to the tensions arising from the demands of city living.

Waste management solutions in overcrowded Asian cities, is another key need. One needs only to travel to most capitals and major cities in Asia to notice the challenges and opportunities for waste management solutions. This will also help address a growing concern of plastics polluting the ocean where Asian countries rank among the top three polluters.

New cities are trending to become greener, have improved mobility, high rise development and greater connectivity. However, as cities get over populated they are also facing a number of challenges and the top ten are health care, deployment of technology and data management, changing demographics, managing energy and the environment, affordable housing, education, infrastructure, public safety, budgets and economic development. All these challenges are a catalyst for urban poverty.

Unlike rural poverty, urban poverty is complex and multidimensional—extending beyond the deficiency of income or consumption, where its many dimensions relate to the vulnerability of the poor on account of their inadequate access to land and housing, physical infrastructure and services, economic and livelihood sources, health and education facilities, social security networks, and voice and empowerment.

In most of developing Asia, urbanization has been accompanied by slums and shelter deprivation, informality, worsening of the living conditions, and increasing risks due to climate change and exclusionary urban forms. According to the UN-HABITAT, Asia has 60% of the world’s total slum population, and many more live in slum-like conditions in areas that are officially designated as non-slums. Working poverty and informality are high in Asian cities and towns. Recent years have witnessed, almost universally, increasing urban inequalities and stagnating consumption shares of lower-percentile household.

70% of the world’s population is estimated to be in cities by 2050. In Asia, the UN reported that 48 percent of the population is living in urban areas. However, the study shows that the figure will increase to 64 percent in 2050. Asia and Africa are predicted to record the highest growth in urban populations in the world.

We seem resigned to this shift and the challenges these shifts will bring both to infrastructure, natural resources and the communities within the cities. Asia will have at least 22 megacities with more than 10 million residents by 2030.

Push factors such as poverty and unemployment are the reasons why people leave rural locations in the countryside. Pull factors such as new technology, greater opportunities, better facilities and increased wealth are the reasons why people moved to urban locations in towns and cities.

Can we create a suburban utopia where communities on the periphery and beyond the city are enabled by technology to enjoy the benefits of conscious living? And not feel compelled to move to the city? Can companies embrace technology to enable remote offices and virtual teams that can contribute to economy without moving to the city?

Key Nordic cities have been voted within the top 10 smartest and greenest cities in the world. Are there lessons that Asian cities can learn from? Are there technologies and system level solutions that have been deployed to achieve a liveable city with a sense of conscious living?

The Nordics have also integrated their power system with a common market so that there is cross border sharing and integration of power. The ASEAN community has been discussing the ASEAN super grid for more than 25 years and despite making progress through bilateral agreements, there must be lessons from the Nordics to establish a multi-lateral system within the ASEAN caucus. In 2014 ASEAN announced the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore (LTMS) power integration pilot to establish a pilot that would demonstrate a multi-lateral integration of the power system. In Jun this year Thailand announced plans to sign an electricity accord with Laos and Malaysia. This electricity deal, enables the ASEAN Power Grid to materialize where Malaysia might consider selling to Singapore some of the electricity it acquired from Laos.

I leave you with more questions than answers. Technology must help solve problems and it would seem that a system level holistic technological and non-technological solutions that enable this notion of conscious living is required to address the many challenges facing Asia.

Problems in Asia range from poverty alleviation to greater conscious living for those outside the trap of insufficiency and inequality. However these problems do present business opportunities for Nordic technologies and system level solutions. Helping Asian countries address the 17 global sustainable goals by partnering local companies to penetrate both domestic and regional countries by understanding differences in cultural and business practices and leveraging trust based relationships. These relationship built over time and experience is highly valued and is key for creating impact to the community and business.

I believe the Nordics have not fully represented themselves in Asia in bringing some of their innovative solutions that could be well adapted to address the Asian challenges. Such adaptation through R&D with local universities and institutes of higher learning, can ensure greater success of deployed technology.

Finally a pitch for Singapore since I am Singaporean. Singapore can serve as a great Launchpad into South East Asia and Greater Asia. It has good institutes of higher learning with strong R&D culture. It also has a strong legal system with regional reach and incentives for innovation within Singapore with strong IP protection. Enabled by good connectivity, smart infrastructure, skilled manpower and stable government, it also provides a safe environment for businesses to operate from.

Let’s challenge ourselves to be collaborative and innovative so that we can move at pace and scale to address Asia’s growing challenges and mitigate the two degree temperature rise in a timely manner with system level solutions - technical, financial and social.

Thank you