Yayasan Khazanah Annual Dinner 2010

Yesterday marked the Yayasan Khazanah Annual Dinner 2010 - held to celebrate scholars and offer a chance for company executives and Khazanah trustees to mingle together and network/talk about interesting issues. Parents of new scholars, of which the number was 47(?) this year, were also invited. The family has expanded quite aggressively from last year and we "upgraded" from Sheraton Imperial to Mandarin Oriental this year, in the word of Dato' Mustapa, our Yayasan Khazanah chairman.

It was good to catch up with the other scholars over this buka puasa dinner and exchange snippets on life in universities, working in Khazanah under various departments, books, academia, and so on. My current bosses under the Khazanah internship, Mr Farouk Mohamed and Ms Aileen Buang were also at the dinner, as were my YK superiors, Puan Suhayati, Mr Hafiz, Ms Noorlida, etc. To have everyone in one place can sometimes be too much of a good thing - there wasn't enough time to talk to everyone! Add to that, the fact that some of Malaysia's brightest minds were present last night (I further add that the brightest can be brighter - frequent use of superlatives should be discouraged). A further shock came in the form of the discovery that some parents and scholars there actually read this blog - I should start some form of monitoring visits here, but I'm just too lazy.

An aside: Many people monitor traffic to their blogs because there is a psychological benefit from doing so - we like to believe what we have written is important and the illusion of progress gained from seeing a lot of comments and visits is endearing. I try to ignore such human sentiments and forcefully make myself more rational.

'To 'Pa, as some of us call Dato' Mustapa, reiterated that the Khazanah scholarship is the premier scholarship in Malaysia - that only the best and brightest fill Khazanah's ranks. Again we were reminded of the need to build up human capital in Malaysia, or be stuck in the middle income trap between highly innovative economies and low-cost base economies.

7 of the scholars also did extremely well in the CIE 'A' Level examinations this year - results were out yesterday morning. Farid Nazer and Low Wen Zhen (among the star performers) will be my juniors in Cambridge. I must say it's a pleasure to see our scholars doing well - my hope is not to disappoint the organisation next year!

I was hoping to ask a couple of questions to Tan Sri Azman, our Managing Director of Khazanah, but there wasn't a Q&A session this year:

1. Is there a possibility of creating an online library or some shared system of books for Khazanah scholars that promote multidisciplinary perspectives (e.g. economics, finance, psychology, self-help)? Could we submit claims to Khazanah if these books are deemed beneficial by Yayasan Khazanah?
2. Would scholars be allowed to engage in start-ups with the backing of Khazanah instead of directly working for Khazanah Nasional or other subsidiary companies during the scholarship bond?
3. Would Khazanah/Ministry of Finance ever consider carving out or spinning off a separate wealth fund to manage surpluses from currency reserves or commodities like Norway’s SWF or Singapore’s GIC? Why not have a separate entity investing in Asia-Pacific ex-Malaysia to capitalize on growth and know-how in other countries in Asia?
4. Which nationals would you encourage Khazanah scholars to build networks with (e.g. nationals from UAE, Jordan, Germany) for the future benefit of Malaysia in an era of economic interdependence and globalization?
5. How important is a culture of intellectual curiosity to Khazanah and how can we encourage and incentivise scholars to read more and practice “scholarship with erudition”?

I am, in particular, passionate about the idea of the online library - my reading list will run into thousands of ringgit as it is (although I doubt I have the time to read all of them, optimism is good - that's the Upside of Irrationality for you). Also, all this reading should be done in the next 5 years because our gray matter simply loses most of it's absorptive capabilities by that time. Thus, time to cut down on computer games (although Starcraft 2 deserves a lot of plaudits - it is definitely a cut above Command & Conquer 4) and other forms of "noise" and concentrate on the real stuff of life, or "music".

Instead, some scholars including Yvonne Lim were coaxed into giving speeches on stage about their opinions of the scholarship.. and given the opportunity to ask the next scholar to speak. Needless to say, I made myself a little more invisible while she was up on the podium.

In a weeks' time, I also end my internship - it will have been my 6th week at the MDO's office at Khazanah Nasional by then. The experience has been enjoyable (nice colleagues, good coffee, free Starbucks!, fast internet, engaging although sometimes clerical work which increases at an exponential pace, and a good view of Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley).

What awaits me the week after is a planning of what needs to be done next year in Cambridge - housekeeping and business before leisure, I would say. Have to get started on some Cambridge Math Tripos Part IB courses including Optimization, Quantum Mechanics, Markov Chains, and Linear Algebra (let me not be too ambitious for now - there's still the reading list mentioned above. For the record, the reading list includes, among others:

Crisis Economics - Nouriel Roubini
Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan
168 Hours - Laura Vanderkam
The 4-Hour Workweek - Timothy Ferriss
The Sages - Charles Morris
The Upside of Irrationality - Dan Ariely
Empire - Niall Ferguson
Colossus - Niall Ferguson
The Cash Nexus - Niall Ferguson
The House of Rothschild - Niall Ferguson
The War of the World - Niall Ferguson
The Wisdom of Bees - Michael O'Malley
What The Dog Saw - Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
The Raffles Conversations 2008/2009
Chasing Goldman Sachs - Susan McGee
13 Bankers - Simon Johnson and James Kwak
EConned - Yves Smith
The Big Short - Michael Lewis
Too Big to Fail - Andrew Ross Sorkin
The Plundered Planet - Paul Collier
Irrational Exuberance - Robert Shiller
The Subprime Solution - Robert Shiller
Animal Spirits - George Akerlof and Robert Shiller
Identity Economics - George Akerlof
The (Mis)behavior of Markets - Benoit Mandelbrot
The Fractal Geometry of Nature - Benoit Mandelbrot
Superfreakonomics - Stephen Dubner
This Time is Different - Carmen Reinhart

Quite a long list, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Also, I just re-read the Black Swan - I should post a review of that awesome book at some point.

Then I get to enjoy some Sarawak laksa (endorsed by Anthony Bourdain as, arguably, the best breakfast in the world) in peace and meditate about the workings of the world. Some topics for meditation might plausibly include the link between finance and the real economy, Inception, and what a meaningful life means (after all, you don't just want to make so much money until you're so poor that you only have money left. If it's all about the money - just sell drugs).

Finally, it's Ramadan and Hari Raya is just around the corner - guess I will be in Kuching to enjoy the fireworks!