The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride 2019

The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride unites classic and vintage style motorcycle riders all over the world to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health.

This is my first year riding in the DGR with Latte Bike.

I have done DGR in Boston, Paris and New York previously. 

To me, DGR is like a cosplay event. people come together dressed up to ride. You get to see a lot of fantastic bikes which comes out once or twice a year. 

There is a big community of people who ride, but the community of daily riders are getting smaller as motorcycles in Singapore keep getting more expensive dues to excessive taxes. The inspection is also getting ridiculuous stupid as you can fail inspection even when you pass all the tests, but your original exhausts do not have the right inscription on them. 

I had to put some other original exhausts that were much louder to pass inspection.

In Singapore, many old motorcycles will also be banned on the road from 2028, and the blanket rule of giving out money is making some people profit from their old and unreliable bikes, while those who love their classic bikes are screwed.

The DGR in Singapore is pretty big as well, the meeting place at the back of the National Museum is almost not big enough to fit all the motorcycles. I estimate that there are more than 500 motorcycles in the parking lot, with some parked outside. 

It was a great riding event and there was some funds raised for a good cause. 

Hope to be more of such rides.

-- Robin

Solar Energy Storage Hackathon Singapore.

The Solar Energy Storage Hackathon in Singapore is run by Global Sense and Civil Innovation Lab. This is the first of such event held in Singapore, and the goal is to find out sustainable solution for storing sustainable energy in Rural communities.

The registration started on 18 April 2016, and there were 2 pre-Hackathon workshops on 28 May and 4 June. The workshops are to introduce how solar energy works, and to calculate carbon footprint. The hackathon is open to secondary schools, JC and university students.

This year, the hackathon is run at the Singapore Science Center on 14 - 17 June. there were 37 registered participants and the each team was given a 5.4W panel that produces 4.5V output.

The challenge was to use this panel to store energy (without the use of batteries or chemicals) in a sustainable way, and later allow the energy to be used to power LED bulbs or charge a phone. The solution should be scalable in the rural communities, like those in Nepal which are off the grid.

The participants are encouraged to recycle old toys and appliances for the storage and spend as little as possible, and use item which they think can be acquired in Nepal. 

After some brainstorming, mentors are assigned to each team to work with them on a solution that they could hack together in the next few days.

Some of the ideas were pretty ambitious, and others rather novel. Many of the students did learn a lot from school, and want to apply their knowledge, and during the hackathon, they quickly realized that it is actually very challenging to create a prototype, which it is easy to work out solution on the paper.

For example, the most common way to get energy stored to light a bulb or charge a phone is to use a motor as a generator, and picking the right motor to light up a bulb is not easy. Even a 3W motor can come in various sizes and even engineering students don't have any idea when it comes to creating a device. It is really a big test on their creativity and adaptability to work towards the solution with what they have.

Initially, some of the participants though of similar solutions, but implementing and creating the solution is NEVER the same. even when 2 teams want to store water, one team actually created their own pump out of a piece of wood in a circular plastic container and a motor.

The hands on experience on creating the prototype and managing their limited time is also a great learning experience as most knowledge are taught on books, and translating it to a physical product is something all the participants have no experience in.

After a few days of assembling materials and building their prototype, they have to present their solution to the judges.

The participants created a lot of novel solutions, and there were many iterations of the creation as there were lots of trail and error to get to what they want.

Time management was also very important, and some groups had a rather hard time managing time, and resources. And eventually had to scale down their solution to a simpler one.

Many interesting devices were created by the younger student, and even a "valve" derived by examining how the heart works is being tested.

The prototypes need to be functioning and not "pretty" and even so, it was not an easy task. For some projects, it became a crafts project, and one need to be handy and innovative to use limited resources.

In the end, one of the younger teams created a good device which they can demo (and works) to pump water to a height with a pump powered by the solar panel. And later, use the running water to turn a turbine and light up a bulb.

We would like to thank our main sponsor -- Ricoh Singapore that sponsored the Theta S 360 camera as prizes for the winners.

I had great fun organizing the event and was inspired by the young minds in their creative solutions. This was their first hackathon experience and they put in a lot of effort to work on the prototypes. They are also invited to travel to Nepal where there are several on the ground partners like Nepal Communitiere to host them to scale their prototypes up into other solution to empower the rural communities and earthquake survivors.

-- Robin Low

State of Social Enterprise in Singapore

I went for a talk on ACSEP Social Entrepreneurship (SE) Series: Landscape of Social Enterprises in Singapore by Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (ACSEP)

There was some insight on the state of social enterpreneurship in Singapore.

The seminar will address current issues surrounding social enterprise, focusing on: —

• Core principles underpinning a social enterprise — 
• Public perception of the social enterprise model — 
• Challenges and opportunities facing the sector

With some comparisons with the UK, South Korea, the SE in Singapore does not seem to do as well as other developed countries.

There was some talk about the ambiguity of definition of Social Enterprises, and how some organizations identified themselves as social enterprises but there were only about 150-300 SEs in Singapore compared to 1000+ in South Korea where the government started the SE initiatives later but seems to have more SEs in the country.

There was a little focus to talk about how NTUC is one of the largest social enterprise, but during the Q&A, many people questioned why NTUC is considered a social enterprise.

There seems to be very little support from the government on social entrepreneurship. Back in 2008, there was a lot of talk on Social Entrepreneurship, much funding and training provided. However, even with NTUC and various other companies like Grab Taxi identifying themselves as Social Enterprises, there is 150-300 of them in Singapore?

Many questioned on why NTUC is considered a social enterprises and the response was "NTUC is a cooperative which gives a % back to the members"

I asked if Unilevel and SAP, companies who partnered Grameen Creative Labs on several social initiatives for social impact can be considered social enterprises, the reply was they only donated a small % of their profits as CSR.

Then a model was shared and according to the Social Enterprise Association in Singapore, an organization that gives 10% of the profits to a social cause can be considered a social enterprise. So can Marina Bay Sands or Resorts World Sentosa be considered a social enterprises if they donated 10% of their earnings to Gamblers Annoymous?

Currently, there is no legal structure for a social enterprise in Singapore. An organisation can choose to either be registered as a charity (in which case it forgoes doing business) or be registered as a full commercial company (where the profits can, but need not, go to charity). In UK, there is the CIC organizations, in the US, a L3C, and in South Korea, a Social Enterprise enjoys different tax structures and funding. Nothing here in Singapore.

With NTUC labeled as a social enterprise, I feel that it opens the door for all sorts of companies to be considered social enterprises. I have heard about some social enterprises hiring ex-convicts, handicapped people and the elderly, getting a tax break and underpaying the people they hire, and yet still considered social enterprises.

I disagreed with several NUS business school professors who say that it is important for a company to do well before doing good, and a social entrepreneur has to juggle with decisions whether to make less profits or to exploit the employees.

When profits is the primary focus of a company, I feel that that company should not be called a social enterprise. Some of these companies are merely companies with a CSR program. Giving 10% of your profits to say that you are doing social good is not bad, but it does not make you a social enterprise.

A social enterprise should not pay a handicapped person or a marginalized person less, just because they can, and still call themselves a social enterprise. Sometimes, that is the only reason these companies can be considered social enterprises in the first place, and using the faces of these marginalized people for marketing purpose is definitely worth not exploiting them. They are the marketing material.

There is much to progress as a nation and I hope people do not do things for the sake of doing. But first, stop white washing your company's name. NTUC by itself is a good brand without being a social enterprise. Perhaps you can be more competitive in your pricing and pay more decent wages for better service.

-- Robin Low