(10 July, Singapore)In conjunction with HER TIMES 4th Women Empowerment Awards Ceremony, a forum was held on the afternoon of 6th July 2023 at the Indonesian Embassy, centred around the theme: “Women’s Influence in City Transformation”.
To fully leverage the potential of women in urban transformation, it is crucial to address systemic barriers, such as gender-based discrimination, limited access to resources, and cultural biases. By recognizing and promoting women’s role and contributions, cities can become more inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous for all residents.
Singapore, a world’s women-friendly city?
Mr Melvyn Goh, CEO of Family Fortune Times kicked off the session through his sharp observation of traffic symbols and road signs in Singapore. He shared several male pictorial road signs he took when jogging around in the neighborhood. Compared to other countries where there are female pictorial signs, he brought the audience to think about Singapore, as a metropolis city still having room to be more inclusive and build a more woman-friendly city.
“The world is just transforming back to normal post-COVID, and continues to face challenges around supply chain, aging population, climate change, social inequality, and digital technology. We have to be watchful about ‘Bad Tech’ and leverage on the ‘Tech for Good” to transform” said Ms Janet Ang, Nominated MP of Singapore in her keynote speech as the Guest of Honour at the forum.
Ms Ang serves on many boards, including the Council for Board Diversity and the Singapore Business Federation. Amidst all these challenges, she also highlighted that sustainable development of the human person must be at the centre of the very purpose of transformation and to pursue sustainable human development one of the key critical success factors is leadership which has been pretty much male-dominated for ages. “Women have also not been stepping up nor leaning in fast enough to influence transformation. There have to be more collective efforts by both men and women leaders to shape societies.” added Ms Ang.
During the panel discussion, the speakers participated actively in much thought-provoking topics around women’s indispensable involvement, and challenges faced during city transformation, from design thinking, female diplomats’ mindsets, tech innovation to constructing a women-friendly city. Ms Annie Song, editor-in-chief of Fortune Times, moderated the panel session.
Ms Hastin Dumadi : Gender equity at workplaces enables more career women participation in Indonesia
When Ms Hastin Dumadi started her diplomatic career 20 years ago, there were only 10 – 15 female Indonesian diplomats. “Now male and female have equal opportunities where more than 50% young Indonesian diplomats are females, participating in important decision making.” said Ms Hastin. Before her relocation to Singapore, Hastin has her diplomatic career in London and Washington DC. In 2020, when COVID was at its peak, she took on the diplomatic role as Minister Counsellor at the Economic Department of Indonesian Embassy in Singapore. When she was first assigned to oversee the economic affairs to Singapore, she was warned that it would be tough to deal with the many male businessmen here. But she is glad to have a supportive Ambassador (her boss) at the Indonesia embassy in Singapore, so that she can execute her work to enable and create impacts on the ground.
She is appreciative that as a national policy in Indonesia, every ministry including overseas embassies are tasked to promote and emphasize gender equality and diversity for the growth of women officers.
As a mother of two where every career woman would have similar challenges, she said the key would be one’s own mindset. Ms Dumadi believes in “Just Do It”, whenever she thinks she can do it. She added, “We are living in an ever-changing world, one has to do one’s best, regardless being a male or female.”
Ms Daliana Suryawinata : Women increasingly play greater roles in building sustainable cities
As an activist architect, Ms Daliana Suryawinata collaborates with her husband, who is also her business partner, as an equal on key government projects. They complement each other at work with the shared vision to create liveable cities that are sustainable.
With regard to Nusantara, the new capital that will replace Jakarta, she is optimistic of the development and excited with the transformations that can be implemented. She is impressed with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing (Indonesian: Kementerian Pekerjaan Umum dan Perumahan Rakyat, abbreviated Kemen PUPR) that have employed many women. She believes that technology can help to strategize and support better collaboration between males and females to create sustainable cities.
Born in 1980, Ms Suryawinata believes she represents the younger generation where women nowadays have more career opportunities than before and men also play a more engaged role at home. A good example is her husband who is a better cook than her and loves to take care of their son.
Mr Lien Choong Luen : Understanding Data, AI and Women-Friendly Work Environment
Singapore General Manager of GoJek, an Indonesia based ride-hailing company, Mr Lien Choong Luen believes knowing how to use data and AI will be useful for city planning and transformation. “It is about how to make cities more friendly and safer for women eg using face recognition, and having designated safe pickup women zones at night.” said Mr Lien.
He sees the twinning logic of business and technology to facilitate more potential microservices for women, which only make up a fraction of Gojek users in both Singapore and Indonesia.
In 2019, Gojek in Indonesia started the #PerempuanAmanBersamaGojek (Women are safe with Gojek) campaign, the first in the country to implement a bystander intervention approach for women’s safety. This is to ensure safety for women, especially at night. This is important, considering that female customers conduct 55 percent of total GoRide and GoCar trips at night in Indonesia.
Incidentally, 8 out of 9 of his direct reports are women. They are involved in heading Operations, Crisis Communication, Government Affairs, Data Analytics, Human Resource, Finance, Legal and Logistics. The one single man in his team heads Marketing. As the leader, he believes in creating a work environment that is welcoming and supportive for women to stay on their jobs. He respects each individual is different and thus the leadership style plus communication will need to suit for each person, regardless of male or female. He is proud to witness the career growth of one female staff that first started work with him and has since become a mother of two kids now.
At the forum, there has been much attempts to explore different angles of women influence in city transformation. Serving as a platform, Fortune Times hopes that the shared views of panelists and speakers can inspire governments, organisations and companies to invest more in women who can bring numerous benefits in transforming cities for the future.
To sum it all, Ms Dorothy Seet, Honorary Chairperson of SingCham and a Singaporean entrepreneur, who has run businesses successfully for 30 years in China, said “Women have always played critical roles in societies and historically have been the backbones of their families, communities and countries.” As the on-going process of urbanization across the world has thrown up significant challenges for societies to address, Ms Seet firmly believes women can play more vital roles to bring their unique perspectives, insights, and ideas so as to help shape policies and transform our cities for the better.
The forum lasted for a good two hours and all participants thereafter proceeded to join the Awards Ceremony and Dinner at the Nusantara Hall in the Indonesian Embassy. Gracing the forum and awards dinner, there were representatives of enterprises from Singapore, Indonesia, China and the region; representatives of chambers of commerce, and important diplomatic envoys of ASEAN countries including: H.E. Suryo Pratomo, Ambassador of the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore; H.E. Dato’ Dr Azfar Mohamad Mustafar, Malaysian High Commissioner to Singapore; H.E. Sok Khoeun, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Cambodia to Singapore;H.E. Sengkeo Pouangpadith, Ambassador of Lao PDR to Singapore;Mrs Chonlatee Chanrachakul, Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission, the Royal Thai Embassy in Singapore.
(Written by Joey Gan)
