# Taming Black Elephants (part 2 of 2)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [171], part 2 of 2. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (PDF), 2015-07 (from the career record), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015), before the law step (Mattereum, 2017).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Context on self-governing cities, adjacent to the question of how a camp-city governs itself.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - Taming Black Elephants (2017): Singapore's former civil service head took up the black elephant idea in a lecture series and book.
  - The Living City (2009): A Buttered Side Down talk to the engineering firm Arup, with Mike Bennett: how cities learned to beat... (suggested by machine)
  - The Big Deal (2011): Four-essay blog series arguing that government has hit hard limits, so civil society, working with... (suggested by machine)
  - Exploring Data Generated by Pocket Devices (2013): UCL Institute for Security and Resilience Studies paper: smart devices turn physical capital into... (suggested by machine)
  - The Cities That Will Walk Away (2019): Talk on rehousing 300 million climate migrants in new cities, and the thirty-year Hexayurt plan, halfway... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - black elephant: The black elephant term, from its naming to a Singapore lecture series.
  - CheapID to Mattereum: One identity pattern, from a person's ID card in 2006 to warranties on physical goods in 2017. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - STAR-TIDES: The National Defense University project and the papers around it. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - goat rodeo to warlords: The goat rodeo idea, from a 2010 blog post to a 2011 one-page paper to the opening chapter of Warlords, Inc. (2015). (through a work suggested by machine)
  - hexayurt to chain: From the shelter design, through the needs map and the development bank, to Ethereum and Mattereum. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - nuclear / panflu: Pandemic, evacuation and rehousing plans. (through a work suggested by machine)
- Topics: Black elephants, complexity & Singapore (86%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: Singapore (54 here; 39 sources in all, earliest dated 2009); Estonia (6 here; 13 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); Peter Ho (4 here; 6 sources in all, earliest dated 2015); DARPA (2 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2013); citizens (7 here; 63 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated); early warning (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); venture capital (3 here; 26 sources in all, earliest dated 2002); Black Elephant (2 here; 14 sources in all, earliest dated 2009); Goat Rodeo (2 here; 14 sources in all, earliest dated 2010, 3 undated); Linton Wells (1 here; 4 sources in all, earliest dated 2009)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): Peter Ho
- Importance: core-text score 0.18 (1.00 is the top), number 388 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [159] [Taming Black Elephants (2017)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/159.md): same career work: Taming Black Elephants
  - [157] [The Black Elephant Challenge for Governments | IPS Commons (2017)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/157.md): same career work: Taming Black Elephants
- On the same works, just before: [775] [Vinay Gupta - Foreign Policy By Internet Protocol (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/775.md); [298] [Raw footage of Transparent Society mic audio soon (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/298.md); [296] [Vinay Gupta - Transparent Society - Crowdfunding on... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/296.md)
- On the same works, just after: [755] [Vinay Gupta | Computers that just work | State of the... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/755.md); [229] [The Man Whose Job It Is to Constantly Imagine the Total... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/229.md); [759] [Vinay Gupta, Robin Hood Coop London Open Office, August 2015 (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/759.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: Taming Black Elephants, document, 2015-07, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [171], https://guptaoption.com/texts/171.md.

## Passages, part 2 of 2
[p. 18 to 20](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=18) dominant scale of influence and action. On Singapore  The Innovator’s Dilemma. The current government does not build on an empty slate, but inherits legacies left by Singapore’s founding government. It therefore faces the innovator’s dilemma of having to un-create in order to re-create.  Where are the spaces for creativity? A participant asked where the hidden spaces in Singapore were, similar to the unused warehouses and lofts, the nooks and crannies where ideas were traded and creativity flourished in innovative cities such as Seoul and Berlin. While Singapore was effective at centralised urban planning, these invisible, forgotten spaces could play a vital role too. Ironically, the nicer the city became, the costlier things would become and the more difficult to find such spaces – was Southern Malaysia where these spaces might go?  How broad is Singapore’s matrix of possibilities? If Singapore were to go beyond its traditional strengths of efficiency and orderliness to be a truly innovative city, perhaps it needed to examine what is limiting its ability to innovate. Did the lack of a truly local language, or the conservative values of Singaporean society, indicate potential limits? Does the budding arts and culture scene then represent hope for a greater creative force?  Rethinking meritocracy. Meritocracy has underpinned Singapore’s development over the past 50 years, and enabled a merit-based system for selecting individuals that are the most capable by certain measures, such as academic ability. It is noted, however, that groups that are diverse and possess a variety of abilities tend to be more productive. In view of this, a question for Singapore is whether it can design its system of meritocracy that also encourages diversity. 17 Graphic recording: Welenia Studio 18 PHAPPiNESS Regain confidence people ASSET - is iT IMPORTANT? GOVERNMEN looking at it → a new of the system moder? Don't know.. 3animals: Buil Socia appital TECHNOLOG invested overseas, from different walks a clash o of values and brught Protit home Micro- EXPECT CONSTANT PPARALYSiS economy SURPRISE-continual Process of discovery Disintemediation 2.BLACK passed off as & disaggregation TALENT-FoR WHAT ENDS? underprice visk BEHAVIOURS URBANISATION, NDUSTRIAL DEVELDPMENT -not as fast as population growth City #1: ENVIRDNMENT Post-industral -the climate change isue COHESION implications for 1mil foreign slow cultural infrastructure devt London Paris ALL'S NoT LoSt.. MULTICULTURALiSM S.F D allas but important shill not so popular now, infrastructure cuttuval epathy N.Y. ENTITLEMENT Toronto Dubai sydney SHARP SPiKE iN nothing that we cando melbourne. MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE about it? HINTERLAND ANTAGONISM HKPear River elta New CiTizens in SG BKK IDENTITY? Suportive difficulty in inteeration LASH OF SHHOULD BE OF TIM VALUES NATIONAL SERVICE.... EDUCATION. IGR THAN INCLOSIVE We must have idea of whowe want tobe, as NATioNAL CoNSENSUS -conduit? a country dual, shanialaw in singapor butterflyeffect RESILIENCE + A APTABILITY CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC FUTURES Wendy Fore Sight q July 2015. singapore. weleniastudios.2015. CONFERENCE! SCENARIOS OF THE FUTURE Having explored the flows, spaces and flux facing global cities, the Conference turned to building some possible scenarios of the global

[p. 19 to 21](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=19) must have idea of whowe want tobe, as NATioNAL CoNSENSUS -conduit? a country dual, shanialaw in singapor butterflyeffect RESILIENCE + A APTABILITY CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC FUTURES Wendy Fore Sight q July 2015. singapore. weleniastudios.2015. CONFERENCE! SCENARIOS OF THE FUTURE Having explored the flows, spaces and flux facing global cities, the Conference turned to building some possible scenarios of the global city in 2035. Participants discussed the forces that would shape the outlook for a global city, and collectively sketched out facets of the 2035 global city through the lenses of growth, decay/collapse, discipline and transformation. Graphic recording: Welenia Studios What are the pre-determined forces and uncertainties?  Pre-determined: Demography. Global cities will need to consider both the people who choose to be in the city, and also those who are already there – such as the elderly who moved in when they were younger, the original residents who will eventually be turfed out as prices rise, as in the case of San Francisco. The population growth of cities comes largely from in-migration – what are the policies to manage this? It is important to consider how best to design a city that is liveable for not only for the globally mobile, but also for the less mobile population in society.  Pre-determined: Climate Change. The only uncertainty around climate change is how far and how fast it will unfold. Many societies will need to shoulder the costs of hard decisions (e.g. massive relocation, construct large and costly dykes). Climate change refugees also have the potential to be a wide-reaching issue – we 19 would be confronted with the question of how to house and accommodate large numbers of displaced people with drastically fewer resources.  Uncertainty: Quality of Governance. To tackle the myriad challenges, one key question is whether global cities can uphold good governance and be ready for change in moments of crisis. Some participants suggested that the quality of governance was demonstrated in the ability to galvanise society to overcome challenges. The Dutch experience with flooding was a case in point: they have spent US$1 trillion since the 17th century, and expect to spend another US$2 trillion in the next 50 years, because the experience of flooding is in their living memory, and ignoring the problem could mean the end of their very existence.  Uncertainty: Economic Growth. Global cities will need to be conscious about developing industries that provide good jobs, because high growth coupled with inequality will not be a success scenario to citizens. New forms of technology are likely to reward the few who have the ability to exploit them, leading to greater inequality. The question to ask then is whether technological advancement on its own will benefit everyone, or whether social policies are needed to ensure that those benefits are shared across society.  Uncertainty: Regional Politics. All cities are embedded within a broader regional context. What happens outside their borders is largely out of their control, whether it is New York, Shanghai, or

[p. 21 to 22](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=21) question to ask then is whether technological advancement on its own will benefit everyone, or whether social policies are needed to ensure that those benefits are shared across society.  Uncertainty: Regional Politics. All cities are embedded within a broader regional context. What happens outside their borders is largely out of their control, whether it is New York, Shanghai, or Singapore. Singapore has benefitted from a relatively peaceful period in its neighbourhood, but there is no guarantee that the status quo will be maintained.  Uncertainty: Aspiration. What is the city trying to become? What do its people dream of becoming? It is clear for some cities: Shanghai aims to be the economic centre of China; New York was a city that remade itself after its slump in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and its new vision of being high-tech and innovative is gaining it prominence as a dynamic global city. What are the determinants of the trajectories for global cities?  Interplay of multiple factors. Venice is an example of a city that has survived for 700 years. It started out as a port but thrived despite losing its original raison d’être of being a naval power. While the city was subject to familial, patronage-based rule, it was nonetheless 20 competent as a port, and that was a significant factor. The operating context was crucial, as Venice was in a geographical location that worked to its advantage. On the other hand, in the case of Boston, the clustering of education institutions created a culture favourable to innovation and knowledge accumulation that made the city successful despite an absence of strong city leadership.  Success can be self-reinforcing. Success attracts talent; failure drives away talent. This translates into a winner-takes-all dynamic, where successful cities draw talent away from less successful ones. The hollowing out of Detroit following the collapse of its automotive industry was mentioned as a case in point.  Adaptiveness and specialisation. A question for global cities today has to do with whether it is adequately adaptive to compete globally. Some participants felt there would be only a handful of these generalised global cities, but that there would still be space for many cities to develop more specialised niches. One participant questioned whether there would be sufficient specialisations for global city aspirants. In response, others said far more specialisations could emerge when we eventually open up new pathways and economies that we do not know about or have yet to understand. When Dubai first built a port in 1972, it did not expect the venture to lead to its port management niche today. What is next for Singapore, which already has a busy container port and an award-winning airport? Can we imagine Singapore as a space port? After all, rockets are best launched from the equator.  Ability to maximise available potential. If talent is a driver of a city’s success, a city that can maximise the human potential it has will thrive. The traditional way of maximising human

[p. 22 to 23](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=22) already has a busy container port and an award-winning airport? Can we imagine Singapore as a space port? After all, rockets are best launched from the equator.  Ability to maximise available potential. If talent is a driver of a city’s success, a city that can maximise the human potential it has will thrive. The traditional way of maximising human capital has been via education, but there is potential to look at learning in the informal, non-hierarchical, and distributed sense. A participant proposed moving away from qualifications towards aptitudes. For instance, some people have the unusual ability to work out protein folding, a task that is complicated even for computers. People on the autistic spectrum may have their special kinds of intelligence tapped for targeted tasks. Other examples included people who were especially good with their hands, or had high degrees of social intelligence, both of which might be valuable in the future economy. 21 Virtual cities – going beyond the physical global city  Virtual reality, virtual cities. An idea that caught on with a number of participants was the idea that in 20 years, virtual reality and new interactive technologies would allow people across different physical locations to interact and operate in a virtual city. Elements of this are already here, such Estonia’s e-Residency, a transnational digital identity available to anyone in the world interested in administering a location-independent business online.  Virtual government systems; inter-connected governments. As interactive technology puts more places on a virtual plane, successful Would there be the cities might be thought of as hubs that are connected to other hubs, same feeling and a sense of cities and individuals. Given Singapore’s aspiration to be an responsibility if I international arbitration hub, might it be able to provide a legal and have an e-residency? dispute-resolution system, say for a niche area such as online Why would I care? transactions, which could be the start of e-courts (virtualised courts)? Can an entire government be “virtualised”? The Digital 5 consisting of Estonia, the UK, South Korea, Israel and New Zealand have taken most of their governance online. In fact, they have an agreement to put in place back-up systems in the event that a member country’s system collapses.  Uneven leveraging of technology. Several points were made on the harnessing of technology. One participant posited that virtual technologies will help to equalise opportunities at the individual level. If activities such as education, careers and recreation are to be conducted mostly online, the poor might more easily overcome their disadvantages such as the lack of access to good schools, and drastically improve their psychological well-being. Another participant noted that while all cities could purchase technologies to improve lives and raise their competitiveness, the cities that will thrive are those that can govern themselves and use technology to connect with other cities.  What would the politics be like? Some participants suggested that The gates of the politics would centre on the cleavage between the original citizens cities

[p. 23 to 26](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=23) noted that while all cities could purchase technologies to improve lives and raise their competitiveness, the cities that will thrive are those that can govern themselves and use technology to connect with other cities.  What would the politics be like? Some participants suggested that The gates of the politics would centre on the cleavage between the original citizens cities will be hyper- and e-citizens. Questions that would drive the political debate protected, and will include the rights and responsibilities of the different groups, who to be gated with the keep in, who to keep out, and who the gatekeeper would be. can and the cannots at the gate.  What would we be trading? The question of what we would trade in a post-industrial economy with more de-materialised economies and value systems came up in discussions. One idea was that we would trade “centrality in value networks”, or the “control points” of new networks that confer influence and control. Just as Venice had 22 been a central trading node in the past, today, Internet giants Facebook and Google have seized “control points” in this information world by being first movers in social networking and web search respectively. 23 GLOBAL CITIES THROUGH THE COMPLEXITY LENS In a first for the Singapore Foresight Week, participants of Foresight Conference and speakers from the Complexity Workshop came together for an afternoon of breakout discussions. Building on earlier discussions on global cities and the exploration of the complexity lens, these sessions sought to shed light on the complexity of global cities, and to provide new ways of seeing networks and underlying structures. Three themes were explored, and the insights from the discussions served as the starting point for the Closing Roundtable that followed. (a) Cities, Space and Society This discussion centred on how a complexity-based understanding of a city’s workings could be understood. We talked about how we will design urban spaces, evacuate for earthquakes, and construct society’s narratives... We have to realise that tools already exist within the complexity microscope - scenario planning, agent-based modelling – you could use them to make the unpredictable more obvious, recognise early warning signals, how close we are to certain tipping points or to validate or challenge our intuitions. Decision makers tend to be reductive in wanting to get answers to specific questions – once we have a specific question, the natural reaction is to say “give me the answers to the question” if we were to look at the structure of the Singapore economy in the 1950s, we might have said that building more manufacturing factories was the way to go but, actually, there might have been other strategies, such as building a port. 24 (b) Cities and Urban Governance This session looked at the challenges we anticipate global cities of the future to face, and how urban governance could evolve to deal with cities as complex systems. I think the question was what might governance look like in an environment that is characterised by ambiguity

[p. 25 to 28](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=25) been other strategies, such as building a port. 24 (b) Cities and Urban Governance This session looked at the challenges we anticipate global cities of the future to face, and how urban governance could evolve to deal with cities as complex systems. I think the question was what might governance look like in an environment that is characterised by ambiguity and speed. So in the case of ambiguity where things are constantly shifting, you can’t quite predict where you are going to end up and how governance might shift in-depth in that context. In a society where elements like technology move very fast, but other elements such as institutions, culture, relationships take much longer to change, there will be tensions between the speed at which we see these different elements change, and within each layer. One of the key questions that will concern us when it comes to urban governance is what the border of the city in the future is, not just in physical terms but also the physiological border, the cultural border of the city. Who defines this has practical implications. For instance, if you live within these borders, what are your rights in terms of your access to certain services? If you live outside the defined borders of the city, what sort of access would you have to services provided by the city? What is the criterion for membership, what are your rights and what are your obligations as the so-called member of the city? Is this citizenship one that is inherited, is it one that is acquired, and if so for how long? Does it have an expiration period? And, finally: who decides on all these? Who determines all these? 25 (c) Cities and Global Environment This conversation took a step back to view cities as actors on the global stage, and to consider whether global cities of the future will play a role in tackling complex issues of global security. Our group spoke about cities and the global environment and it spanned a whole range of issues, from food security to health and energy to dealing with poverty and developmental issues, the income divides in the rural and urban areas. And in doing so we went back many times to the language that Sander introduced to us yesterday morning about embedded systems, the importance of feedback loops, and the interdependencies across systems. One of the big ideas that I think occupied a lot of our discussions was that we need to solve problems at the most appropriate scale. An example was “stacktivism”, a phenomenon that is taking place in the UK where people are trying to re-perceive things from the scale of the critical infrastructure and looking at them through the means of the production. 26 Graphic recording: Welenia Studios 27 closing Roundtable IDENTITY "City-zen tosssed @Gain insights salad symbiosis between new threats, @Don't use 'complexity' pporrtnities SOlutions AT The 21ct version mulitiplemodes RIGHTS-& too olosely HYPERLOCAL LEVEL MULTi-DIM. difficult to agree whatelse isnot THINKING

[p. 27 to 29](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=27) to re-perceive things from the scale of the critical infrastructure and looking at them through the means of the production. 26 Graphic recording: Welenia Studios 27 closing Roundtable IDENTITY "City-zen tosssed @Gain insights salad symbiosis between new threats, @Don't use 'complexity' pporrtnities SOlutions AT The 21ct version mulitiplemodes RIGHTS-& too olosely HYPERLOCAL LEVEL MULTi-DIM. difficult to agree whatelse isnot THINKING and decide trajectonies told by the data? membership: safe space beles cool I'm in" terative ools. wthout the card?' policy GLOBALENV OIN THE SYSTEM EMOTIONAL gaming NAGI Govt's role: plug c celebnties? Famous CiTIES. D DMNSION APPROPRIATE fabric Club No choice SCALE (dimensionality) HOW MIGHT RELATIONSHIPS FRAMING THE -scale of critical intrastructure, not fixate EVOLVE? social compact RIGHT QUESTiON(S on labour/capital boundanes permeabl? SOCIETY mining the data 101 0 0 SELF-ORGANiSiNG (i) Formal n nighbours URBAN BORDERS when there are HOW MiGHT Physical TOOlS AlREADY EXiST TH ACTORS INVOLVE many such actors Build bottom- up institutions INSTITUTIONS N CHANGE? GOVERNANCE psycholoogical "EGES" Design urbane HOW MIGHT A continuum; spaces with how they come the public NATURE OF RULE- together Biology, can croudsouring The network GOVTAS CONVENOR, Learnby testing; Life sciences affect semices as an institution FALTATIOR embrace, celebrate BESIDES filure HOW FAST CAN "real-play, social compact Then,what PEOPLE ADAPT? not role play VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC FUTURES wendy. Fore Sight weleniastudios.2015. 10 July 2015, Singapore. THE WAY FORWARD The two days of Foresight Conference 2015 brought together a wickedly rich mix of ideas, perspectives and voices on the topic of global cities. As with all exploratory discussions, questions begot questions. The two days concluded with more questions than we had when we started out. Such is the nature of conversations about the future. As we looked back on our discussions, a few ideas stood out. The first was virtual cities. Imagine a future where one could socialise, buy and sell, and collaborate and compete not just in one’s physical location, but in multiple virtual spaces. In a context where stakeholdership in a virtual city is de-coupled from one’s physical location, a globalised market for government services could be possible. In such a world, one could choose to be an “e-resident” (ala Estonia) in a virtual city based on the transactional and governance environment it offers, such as whether rules are tightly-regulated or loosely-governed. The rise of such virtual spaces might also serve as equalisers: with education, careers and recreation conducted online, the poor could overcome some of their traditional disadvantages. For instance, inner city children will no longer be limited to attending the only public school in their residential district, but attend classes in top schools virtually. The possibilities and implications are manifold, and will redefine what society places value on. What would the cost of access or membership to these spaces be? What would competition between these virtual spaces look like? Another issue was the reminder to pay heed to the large numbers of migrants fleeing poverty, conflict and disaster, and consider what their needs and aspirations might

[p. 29 to 31](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=29) and implications are manifold, and will redefine what society places value on. What would the cost of access or membership to these spaces be? What would competition between these virtual spaces look like? Another issue was the reminder to pay heed to the large numbers of migrants fleeing poverty, conflict and disaster, and consider what their needs and aspirations might be. Participants painted scenes such as gated cities of the “cans” that kept the “cannots” outside, and a city nucleated into “secure” and “insecure” districts. Adding to this mix was the potential for climate change refugees to emerge as an additional stressor for city authorities. Successful cities would need to develop enlightened, innovative ways of managing these tensions to create a fair society with opportunities for a broad swathe of their populations. Even the right solutions for a specific time would eventually have to evolve, and cities would need to constantly balance chaos with order to survive and thrive. These ideas and more served as nascent sketches of potential futures that have expanded the boundaries of our thinking. At the Centre for Strategic Futures, these have become valuable seeds for us to nurture as exploratory projects. Where they will take us remains to be seen. It is also our hope that these ideas will set you thinking about the future in new ways. 28 ANNEX I - PROGRAMME Day 1, 9 July 2015 Opening Remarks by Peter Ho, Senior Advisor, Centre for Strategic Futures Global Cities of the Future by Sander van der Leeuw, Emeritus Dean, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University Flows What are the flows and counter-currents that drive the development of global cities? Part 1 – Innovation, Capital and Wealth Part 2 – People and Culture Spaces How are traditional spaces being redefined by the dynamics and interactions of forces? Part 1 – The Market Space Part 2 – The Social Space Flux Will cities be able to ride on the tide of change and flourish, or will they be overwhelmed? Day 2, 10 July 2015 Scenarios of the Future (Part 1) A participant’s sketch of two possible scenarios for global cities like Singapore Scenarios of the Future (Part 2) Collective building of scenarios of the future for global cities along four trajectories Breakout Discussions on Global Cities through the Complexity Lens Jointly conducted with speakers of the Complexity Workshop Cities, Space and Society Urban Governance Cities and the Global Environment Closing Roundtable Chaired by Peter Ho, Senior Advisor, Centre for Strategic Futures 29 ANNEX II - PARTICIPANTS Manu Bhaskaran Director, Centennial Group International Tom Burke Chairman, Third Generation Environmentalism Chan Heng Chee Chairman, Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University for Technology and Design Chng Kai Fong Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Tyler Cowen Professor of Economics, George Mason University Catherine Fieschi Director, Counterpoint Mishaal Al Gergawi Managing Director, Delma Institute Luke Goh Senior Director (Public Service 21 Office), Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Vinay Gupta

[p. 31 to 33](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=31) Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University for Technology and Design Chng Kai Fong Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Tyler Cowen Professor of Economics, George Mason University Catherine Fieschi Director, Counterpoint Mishaal Al Gergawi Managing Director, Delma Institute Luke Goh Senior Director (Public Service 21 Office), Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Vinay Gupta Global Resilience Guru Peter Ho Senior Advisor, Centre for Strategic Futures, Singapore Hwang Yu-Ning Director (Land & Liveability), Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Parag Khanna Senior Fellow, New America Foundation Melissa Khoo Director (Strategic Planning & Futures), Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Kwa Chin Lum Director (Policy Development), Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore Kwek Mean Luck 2nd Solicitor-General, Attorney General’s Chambers, Singapore Lee Tzu Yang Chairman, The Esplanade Company Colin Lim Senior Director (Planning & Organisation Division), Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore Jane Lim Director (Social Programmes), Ministry of Finance, Singapore Thomas Malone Founding Director, MIT Centre for Collective Intelligence Aaron Maniam Director (Industry), Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore Mariana Mazzucato Professor of Science and Tech, University of Sussex Richard O’Neill President, The Highlands Group April Rinne Sharing Economy Advisor Peter Schwartz Senior Vice President, Salesforce.com Sethaput Suthiwart- Executive Chairman, Thailand Future Foundation Naruput Tan Gee Keow Deputy Secretary, Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Tan Li San Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Information, Singapore Sander van der Leeuw Emeritus Dean, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University Jill Wong Director (Institute of Public Sector Leadership), Civil Service College, Singapore Xue Lan Dean, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University Yong Ying-I Permanent Secretary, Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore 30 Complexity Workshop Participants Cheong Siew Ann Assistant Professor, School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences at Nanyang Technological University Seán Cleary Chairman of Strategic Concepts (Pty) Ltd, Executive Vice Chair of the FutureWorld Foundation Colm Connaughton Associate Professor, Warwick Mathematics Institute and Centre for Complexity Science at University of Warwick Ross Hammond Director, Center on Social Dynamics and Policy at The Brookings Institution Lex Hoogduin Professor of Complexity and Uncertainty in Financial Markets and Financial Institutions at Groningen University Nick Obolensky Chief Executive Officer, Complex Adaptive Leadership Sheila Ronis Professor and Chair, Department of Management and Communications, Walsh College, Troy, Michigan, President, The University Group Graham Sack PhD Candidate, Digital Humanities at Columbia University Eörs Szathmáry Director, Parmenides Center for the Conceptual Foundations of Science Jan Vasbinder Director, Para Limes, Nanyang Technological University Linton Wells II Managing Partner of Wells Analytics LLC 31 Centre for Strategic Futures Singapore 32 CSF

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End of [171] Taming Black Elephants, part 2 of 2. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.
Read next: next on the same works, [755](https://guptaoption.com/texts/755.md) Vinay Gupta | Computers that just work | State of the... (2015); the most closely related, [159](https://guptaoption.com/texts/159.md) Taming Black Elephants (2017); his whole career in one file, https://guptaoption.com/story.md.