There is no stopping the “Future of Work,” and the Center for Asia Leadership (CAL) is bridging the gap so people can learn about it firsthand. For the first time, CAL has organized a research and learning trip for fifteen young scholars on the emerging realities of future productivity, culture, skills, and capabilities, in Singapore from Dec. 29 to Jan. 4.
Themed “Leading a Society that Thrives in the Future of Work,” this year’s Asia Leadership Trek (ALT) combines 21st-century leadership development sessions with research and exposure through site visits and dialogue with key industry players.
The race to ‘future ready’
“We will explore how leaders from the business and government sector perceive their future outlook and how they are making their strategic decisions for the future… Meanwhile, the in-classroom learning program was designed to help participants understand what it means to become ‘future-ready,’” explained CAL Co-founder and Vice President John Lim.
According to Lim, ALT aims to develop the Trekkers’ “foundational capacity for the practice of personal and organizational leadership.”
For a week, scholars sent by Sharjah for Capability Development (SDC) will get to learn Adaptive Leadership, strategy, conflict resolution, negotiation, and Design Thinking from CAL Teaching Faculty, such as:
- Shazia Khan, Head of University Talent Acquisition, Roche Genentech;
- Rahul Daswani, former McKinsey consultant and Head of People and Culture, GovTech Singapore;
- Samuel Kim, President and Co-Founder, CAL;
- Craig Brimhall, Managing Director of Learning Engagement, Knōd;
- Puay Siang Tan, Head of Capability Planning, Defence, Science, and Technology Agency SG
The Teaching Faculty for this year’s ALT are all from either Harvard University or MIT Sloan School of Management.
Thought leadership on future trends
As part of the research component of ALT, site visits will be made to the Economic Development Board, McKinsey & Company, ServiceNow, Found8, Microsoft, Amazon AWS, GovTech, and EngageRocket.
The scholars, who were vetted based on their leadership and community involvement, will also join the ongoing “Future of Work” conversation with policy-makers and industry leaders based in Singapore.
They will get the chance to see how organizations are preparing for the impact of a more fluid talent economy, organizational agility, the man-machine synergy, the rise of learning cultures, “super jobs,” and more.
Key insights
CAL will be publishing key insights generated from this Trek in a book on the “Future of Work” under Acumen Publishing, its research and publication arm.
Having organized twelve Treks all over Asia since 2014, CAL has been publishing installments in the Rethinking Asia book series yearly after every Trek. The Rethinking Asia series shares CAL’s thought leadership on education, innovation, leadership, politics, economics, and more.
Established in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Center for Asia Leadership is a group of non-profit international organizations committed to helping leaders in Asia initiate and manage change towards progress.
By Nirva Delacruz