Intelligent Island with Ramakrishna Purushotaman

Ramakrishna Purushotaman, deputy CEO of CIO Academy Asia joined us in a conversation to discuss his new book “Intelligent Island” which he co-authored with Grace Chng, that chronicled the history of information technology development & how it spurred the economy of Singapore from early government efforts. We discussed the major themes, the lessons learnt and what the future of technology industry lies ahead for Singapore will be in the next decade to come. 

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Ramakrishna Purushotaman (@RamakrishnaPuru, LinkedIn), Deputy CEO, CIO Academy Asia and Co-Author of Intelligent Island [0:38]
  • How did you start your career? [1:20]
  • In your career journey, what are the interesting career lessons learnt? [3:02]
  • Can you briefly describe what CIO Academy Asia does and what is your role and coverage? [4:56]
• Intelligent Island: The Untold Story of Singapore’s Tech Journey by Rama and Grace Chng (SITF, Kinokuniya) [8:02]
  • What is the backstory behind writing this book? [8:52]
  • What are the main themes behind Intelligent Island? [11:35]
  • What are the major stories in the book chronologically that are key to the development of information technology in Singapore? [14:20]
  • What are the key lessons that other Asian governments or developing countries outside Asia can learn from? [17:24]
  • Just a thought provoking question: I often felt that Singapore gave up on technology companies before they can grow big. I draw two comparisons: Chartered Semiconductors which lost out to TSMC before they become large, and NCS which lost out to Infosys, all were in the same time where both are equally small. Do you think that the nature of Singapore’s market size made it impossible for behemoth tech companies to emerge? [18:54]
  • Where do you see the evolution of Singapore technology companies in the next two decades? [24:09]
• Closing [25:52]
  • Can you recommend a book, podcast, movie or anything that has impact your personal or work life recently? [26:03]
    • Rama’s recommendation: Peh Shing Huei, “Neither Civil nor Servant”
  • How do my audience find you? [27:05]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.