IP: Singapore Diary July 1999 final

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

I got home on Friday and slept for a lot of time. It is a long flight from Singapore to Philly. 

After we got back t Singapore from Bintan (SD #2), I had a day or so to wander about . In particular I got to the 
Computer Mall -- Shin Lin (sp) and bought some stuff. When last i was in Singapore, they had endless stores with CDROM 
copies of  the latest software. That is still there. What is missing was the MP3 copies of music and US videos. Whether 
they are gone for commercial reasons or law enforcement was not clear.  As usual it was fun. Nothing remarkable but 
lots of very small motherboards and cases. Tea table book size full PCs.  for S$500 fully equipped.

I spent our final days in Singapore at the Kent Ridge Research Labs (http://www.krdl.org.sg/)and will report on it 
separately. in a futire note. 

While I was in Singapore two interesting political things happened.

First the SG Government revised their laws on bankruptcy, home office use, immigration  and stock options  to encourage 
what they call Technoentrepreneurs . Also they opened SG to external ISPs. 

Singapore like most of the region is short on technical people especially in IT. Our new visa laws don't help them (to 
put it mildly) While they turn out a fair number of undergraduate CS majors and ees, very few go on to advanced work. 
Right now imports from India and China partially fill the gap but as those countries get more attractive, it will be 
harder to get them. It remains to be seen whether the training of IT people prepare Singapore to be competitive in IT 
in the future.

Malaysia is a much more  strange case. While the external image they present, is high tech -- the Super Corridore etc. 
the Prime Minister last week berated its people as being more interested in religion and poetry than technology and 
said that removing the racial quotas at the Universities will do nothing to enhance Malaysia technology pool because of 
that.  Real strange at a time he is trying to attract companies to the land. Also he is still berating the foreign 
devils and Jews who brought on the economic crisis. It would scare me to want to establish a lab there if I were a 
foreigner -- especially a Jew or a Chinese. 

Personally I would bet on Singapore as much more stable and hospitable to us foreign devils and will be writing a note 
on the direction I would go if I were a Singaporean.

Still time zonked and overfed. I will say more in a followup note this week

Dave