Mr S Dhanabalan, Chairman of Temasek Trust,
Mr Benny Lim, Chairman of Temasek Foundation,
Mr Lim Boon Heng, Chairman of Temasek Holdings,
Ladies and Gentlemen, those of you who are here physically and those of you who are online,

Good afternoon, or good evening.

It has been quite an interesting afternoon for all of us. I think we’ve learnt so much in a very short period of time. I’d like to thank DPM Heng Swee Keat for his keynote address and each of the panellists for the three panels that we’ve had, for the insights, the perspectives, experiences and for the knowledge that they’ve shared with us.

I’d like to recognise, in fact, the team at Temasek Foundation for organising this inaugural Shophouse Conversation. I know that you are going to have more Temasek Shophouse Conversations, and it will culminate in the Philanthropy Asia Summit.

Now, the distinction of each Shophouse Conversation is that there will be calls to action. Indeed, thought leadership without conversion into action is lost potential and lost opportunities. But we start this series on a high point with the quality of the conversations today.

Three principles struck me through the panel discussions. The first is resilience, and that was maybe the point about the first panel discussion. Everyone talked about how we managed to maintain a sense of order, care and structure in approaching the enormous challenges we faced, despite the initial difficulties. But we also talked about the need for preparedness and for collaboration, regionally and globally. In fact, Prof Wang Linfa had an interesting point to make: just as we have an INTERPOL, we will need to have an organisation that looks at health security and biosecurity, for example, because the sharing of information and data is critical towards understanding the issues we face and finding solutions.

The second is selflessness. There are many great stories of courage, putting community before self, and making great sacrifices to ensure protection of our community and care for those affected. The second panel had many examples of this. People bringing their skills together to find ways in which we could uplift and protect the community because no one is safe unless everyone is safe.

And the third, which came from the third panel, is the spirit of innovation. In many cases, no one had all the answers, or even the processes, but people innovated and improvised. And some even had to do that without the benefit of training for what they had to do. We stretched our talents, forged new partnerships, and through collaboration, found new pathways. And we got a good sense of that in the context of science, the context of drug development, testing, protocols and mechanisms, devices, but also in advanced manufacturing.

So, a key lesson from the sharing sessions that we’ve had is that we must preserve both the spirit of what we have built, and the pathways that we have forged together, because the time will come when we will have to apply these together.

We’ve all had a focus on weathering this crisis, which continues, but our discussions today remind us that Disease X could come our way at any time. And I like the way Dr Jemilah Mahmood put it: that COVID-19 is a massive dress rehearsal for the future.

Of course, even with vaccines, our fight against COVID-19 will not be over. Temasek Foundation will be launching more nationwide distributions of masks and zero-alcohol sanitisers in coming months. And this leads me to our first call to action today.

We’ve had great support from many volunteers during the past rounds. If you – individually, or as representatives of your companies – think you can step forward to help in our next distribution of masks and sanitisers, I know that our team will be grateful to you to come forward.

Our second call to action is Youth Action for Pandemics. This is an appeal to our young people to share your ideas on a project or programme to address the impact of COVID-19 or prepare for the next pandemic. You’re young enough that the memories of COVID-19 will stay with you for a long time. Yet you’re old enough to help prepare for the next one.

We welcome organisations to work alongside our young people – to mentor them, and to help shape or support their pathfinder projects.

I would like to thank the generous support we’ve received from the Heartware Network, National Youth Council, the SMU Lien Centre for Social Innovation, and Young NTUC. We hope more organisations will join in.

So, there is much more that we can do. Now, listening to today’s panel, I realise it’s about the head, the heart and the hands. Coming together to support our communities and bringing whatever we can to a common objective, supporting each other. Only then can we ensure that there’s social cohesion amongst all of us and resilience in all our communities.

Thank you. Stay safe, stay healthy, so you can have a very happy 2021.

Good evening.