This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 6, 2020 - January 12, 2020
LIFELONG learning is no longer a choice but a necessity for any country, company or individual wanting to remain relevant for the long haul.
The reason, according to Santitarn Sathirathai, is that “humans are living longer, but the lifespan of knowledge seems to be getting shorter and shorter” as technology continues to advance exponentially in the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Santitarn, 38, is the author of the Thai-language book Futuration, which talks about how to better prepare for a rapidly changing future.
“Lifelong learning has been a buzzword for some time now, but it is very difficult to do. The most difficult part, for me, is not finding the knowledge, but the questions — having the curiosity to learn new things and being what I call an ‘intrapreneur’,” says Santitarn, former head of Emerging Asia Economics Research at Credit Suisse and now group chief economist of SEA Ltd, a New York Stock Exchange-listed, Southeast Asia and Taiwan-based unicorn better known for its e-commerce, digital entertainment (eSports) and digital financial services platforms Shopee, Garena and Airpay.
“Although I loved my job at the time, the curiosity, that thirst for knowledge had somewhat dissipated. That’s when I realised I needed to get out of my comfort zone, embrace the fear and really be a lifelong learner.”
Not everyone has to change jobs to be a lifelong learner. Far-sighted organisations can harness the power of intrapreneurship by giving employees the flexibility to try new ventures while being employed. The setting-up of special project teams that are experimental in nature is already a trend — successful units become a new arm of that organisation while ideas that do not work are at least given a chance.
Santitarn says, “It is very important for organisations, whether corporate or government, to encourage the creation of intrapreneurs: You allow employees to become entrepreneurs without having to give up their jobs. That positive environment is very important because, once you’ve created the flexibility and allow people to challenge themselves, it releases energy that powers creativity and innovation. If you look at history, innovations like Gmail came out of that.”
Indeed, some of Google’s most iconic products started out as an employee’s part-time experiment. Gmail was Paul Buchheit’s “20% time” experiment, a Google policy that allows employees to work — with 20% of their time on the job — on projects they think will most benefit the company. While critics say the 20% actually means working 120%, the benefits of encouraging and rewarding experiments are clear: People are most engaged when working on things that interest them, especially when their strengths are recognised and put to good use.
“We often talk about innovation as something that happens among entrepreneurs or only if one were a scientist in a lab, but that’s not quite right. All of us who are employees can be innovators as well, and the point is for people to seize opportunities and for organisations to empower employees. What SEA offered was the chance to be an intrapreneur, which I took up,” Santitarn says, relating how there was no role for an economist at SEA before he spoke with the founder and key management of the company while he was writing Futuration.
“[We talked about] how the digital economy could help empower small businesses and consumers, and I really wanted to be part of that process… It was the strangest job interview ever.” Santitarn had to make a proposal for his role at SEA, and explain why the role was necessary and he was the right person for the job as well as discuss the resources needed.
Unleashing intrapreneurs
According to Santitarn, Garena’s first action-adventure mobile game developed in-house was Free Fire, a result of intrapreneurship — employees with the passion for developing games were allowed to start their own project and venture into games development. Free Fire was the world’s fourth most downloaded game on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store in 2018. It is credited as the second online game in the world (after Tim Sweeney’s game Fortnite) to make a billionaire of the company’s founder. SEA founder Forrest Li, a Tianjin-born Singaporean, started Garena in Singapore in 2009.
Not only did Garena transition from a publisher of online games to a games developer, but the popularity of Free Fire expanded the company’s reach beyond Southeast Asia to Latin America and India, where it was the highest grossing mobile game as at October 2019, the company says. As at end-October, Free Fire had recorded total cumulative adjusted revenue of more than US$1 billion since its launch two years ago in 2017.
“That’s [the power of] intrapreneurship. When you give people time, resources and trust, and allow them to try new things that they are passionate about, great things can happen. That’s how you keep innovation within the organisation,” Santitarn says, noting the importance of strong policy direction. “You want to empower employees to have their own ideas, to think, to experiment.
“It comes down to leadership. I wouldn’t say it is just the policymaker’s job but leaders at all organisations, whether government or [private] corporations. It is very important because you need to give people room and resources and, at the same time, the sense of security that encourages experimentation.
“If you say, ‘I’m giving you this freedom but, if you fail, I’m going to punish you,’ most people are not going to try because they are stepping out of their comfort zone and doing beyond what is normally required. So, you need to give them room, an environment that encourages this experimentation, within a limit. One thing that governments around the region have been doing that’s consistent with this spirit is the creation of sandboxes.”
While observers say a key reason for Free Fire’s success was that the game worked well even on mobile networks and unsophisticated handsets, Santitarn calls it the ability to create entertainment that is inclusive, giving everyone equal opportunity to enjoy the same experience. Garena must be doing something right: Its global eSports tournament, The Free Fire World Series 2019, achieved more than 100 million cumulative online views.
Similarly, Santitarn says Shopee is successful because it was able to address unmet needs — e-commerce platforms had not been built for mobile devices in 2015 when the shift from PC took place. There were also unmet needs in the consumer-to-consumer marketplace, especially for products not readily available in malls. In addition, keeping money in a trust account until buyers acknowledged receipt of the right product also eliminates any trust issue on lesser-known sellers. The live chat system, which enables buyers to interact with sellers, caters for the social nature of shopping, as does the live streaming of sellers demonstrating products.
“For example, in Thailand, I like to go to Chatuchak (market in Bangkok) because I like to talk to sellers, bargain and see what is new,” he says, referring to how experiential e-commerce will be a trend to watch for. “It is very similar to the way we go to malls. We don’t know what we want; we go to be entertained and to socialise. [Data analytics and AI will transform e-commerce into virtual] window shopping. You don’t have to walk to the shop but the shop goes to you and presents you with the products you like [and] you can press the ‘buy’ button straight away.
“There are so many different shades of entrepreneurs. In some cases, it is the small and medium enterprises that may have been struggling in the traditional routes, but now they are empowered because they can sell digitally and adopt digital technology. In other cases, it is people who are hidden entrepreneurs, who came out of the labour market and became homemakers, for example, and now they have found a way to earn extra income. Some of them do so well that their husbands quit their jobs and join the business. We also have cases in which students get the funding they need for education via e-commerce.”
A recent survey SEA did with World Economic Forum found that many young people aged under 35 in the Asean region want to be entrepreneurs.
“When they say they want to be an entrepreneur, what they’re really saying is, ‘I want freedom to do the things that I am really passionate about. I want to try different things and experiment.’ They naturally think that means they have to be an entrepreneur, but [one can also pursue one’s passion as an intrapreneur],” Santitarn observes.
Interestingly, the survey also found that Asean youths believe that soft skills — such as emotional intelligence, resilience and adaptability — will be more valuable in the future than hard skills, generally regarded as STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathemathics. The three skills that respondents consider most important are creativity and innovation, language skills and the ability to use technology such as social media and e-commerce; and the least valued skills are data analytics, maths and science. In assessing their proficiency in various skills, three of the four skills that Asean youths regard as their weakest are in the STEM area: ranked bottom is technology design (software programming), followed by data analytics, language skills and maths and science.
Researchers had this to say, however, about the findings: “The fact that youths attach high value to language skills is consistent with our survey findings that 46.4% of young people in Asean are keen to work overseas in the next three years. Experience gained in another country is a notable strategy for upgrading skills in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Given the strong desire from Asean youths to work in the tech sector, the perceived weakness in STEM subjects may be a barrier to future job aspirations. However, not all roles at tech companies require technical skills. Business development, marketing and other functions often call for soft rather than hard skills.
“More positively, given the high preference that Asean youths show to be entrepreneurs, it seems likely that many youths aspire to be small and micro traders, using e-commerce platforms, online payment systems and social media to empower their businesses. Being an entrepreneur does not have to mean developing new apps, where STEM skills would be important. Instead, it can equally mean being a basket weaver from rural Kalimantan and using technology to sell regionally and even globally. Soft skills, coupled with a working knowledge of today’s digital platforms, could serve these aspirations well.”
Coach, not lecturer
As a father of two boys aged four and 2½, Santitarn is constantly thinking about their future and how to best prepare them for the changes brought about by technology.
“Yes, we need education reform but we cannot just say universities and schools need to do a better job. Yes, they do, but there are a lot of actors [stakeholders] that are not in educational institutions that will also have to change. The first step is that parents have to teach children differently, how one measures success and defines failure — it is very hard.”
Instead of being a teacher or lecturer, Santitarn reckons that it is better to adopt the mindset of a coach, be it between parents and children, teachers and students, bosses and employees or the government and the people.
“A coach is slightly different because you don’t come in and impart knowledge. You try to look at the people you’re trying to teach and absorb the process they go through. In my case, it would be what my child is thinking; what are his strengths and weaknesses, what is the problem you’re trying to guide him to solve. [Being a coach] requires a very different skill set; you can be a great teacher by communicating your ideas powerfully, but being a coach means you have to become a very good listener. You have to listen intently and understand why he is doing what he is doing in the way he is doing it.”
Santitarn believes the younger generation of parents has already begun to acknowledge that even those jobs can eventually be taken over by robots or artificial intelligence (AI), and that their children may excel in a profession that does not require advanced degrees but is in an area that they are passionate about.
Pointing out the importance of non-cognitive skills that differentiate humans from robots and AI, Santitarn says: “It’s less about what you teach them and more about why you make them do something… It is okay to start, for example, coding or language early but, ultimately, are you teaching them because you want them to get good grades and get into good schools or are you teaching them so that they learn the logic, the problem-solving skills? That’s a whole different approach.
“The training of hard skills can be useful for picking up soft skills because soft skills are hard to teach. How do you teach creativity or problem-solving? Sometimes, you have to do that through maths, science and coding, for example, as just a way to hone and accumulate those soft skills…
“What we don’t want to happen is you teach them just because you want the desired grades.”
Santitarn says organisations such as SEA already hire people with diverse experience, education and background.
“The company is focused on core talents, regardless of their degree, where they’re from and so on. Once they come in, it is really meritocratic. If you’re good and can thrive, you move up and you do well.
“It is a flat, project-driven organisation. You get to do different projects at different times… We have people with backgrounds ranging from English literature to the more tech and core engineering, and that’s a great thing because it creates diversity — that’s where innovation comes from.
“The skills and mentality become very important and it also helps that the role is somewhat less defined. You may be an economist working in finance but, at the end of the day, it is very project-driven. You might be thrown into different projects that are not exactly within your defined role, but you gain exposure to new areas and new learning.”
Santitarn notes the importance of resilience and adaptability as well as other non-cognitive skills such as leadership, understanding human relations and psychology that the company can observe — for instance, via interaction with people participating in workshops.
His current personal project is to better understand what kind of organisation and environment is better for fostering learning and innovation. “[For example, I want to find out] what makes it so hard for people to accept failure and why, in some cases, some learn from failure while others do not accept it.”
Plan for current and future generations
Despite having published a book on the future, the award-winning economist says he is no expert or futurist.
“I started the book with the notion that, once we study and learn more about the future, we can better predict the future; but the more I learn about the future, the more I realise it is very hard to predict and there is really no way for us to know for certain.
“One realisation is that, if anything, the lifespan of knowledge is getting shorter and the importance of lifelong learning just becomes a huge natural conclusion. By putting the words ‘lifelong learning’ under a microscope, I learnt that the most critical ingredient is curiosity. Once you have curiosity, you will be encouraged to experiment with the right environment, which allows failure and builds resilience to get up and try again.”
It was curiosity about the impact of the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis on the financial sector, the economy and people’s lives that drove Santitarn to pursue a bachelor’s degree in economics at the London School of Economics. Like his father, Surakiart Sathirathai — a long-time academic who served as Thailand’s deputy prime minister, finance and foreign minister — he went to Harvard University, where he earned a master’s in public administration and a doctoral degree in public policy. That was before spending nearly eight years with Credit Suisse, but after a two-year stint as an economist in Thailand’s Fiscal Policy Office and as a visiting lecturer at the Chulalongkorn University.
Now, as an economist in a tech company, Santitarn’s role is one that bridges the gap between the private and public sectors through an internal think tank that researches what drives the digital economy, identifies key obstacles to growth and advocates change by disseminating knowledge to the relevant stakeholders as well as supports policy by identifying how the private sector can best develop the digital economy ecosystem.
“Yes, economists in a tech company can RAP for a living — research, advocate and aid policy. Jokes aside, this RAP process has played a role in the coming-up of key initiatives at SEA,” he says, noting how SEA launched a 10-in-10 programme to mark its 10th anniversary to upskill 10 million people in this region in the next 10 years through three “buckets” of programmes.
“The first is training the future generation, giving them the skills they need for the industries of tomorrow [including] artificial intelligence, data science, coding, games performance and eSports management, which is an emerging industry in this region. We want to create a bridge that links academy and industry so that what we learn in school can be applied to real-life problems, through our apprenticeship and internship programmes. We also have digital inclusion initiatives and programmes for the current generation because the future does not belong to only the future generation but also the current one. We also help SMEs, which represent about 99% of enterprises in this region, to adopt technology so that they are connected to the market and can sell their unique products beyond their usual circle.
“All these initiatives are connected to our 10-in-10 platform, through which we hope to connect governments, policymakers, organisations in different parts of the ecosystem to help empower more people and create more lifelong learners, more intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs and make everyone innovators.
“We want to be part of the movement to have a more inclusive economy; technology is one of the key tools [to achieve that goal] and that’s what keeps me excited each day — exploring how we can contribute to that process better. That’s why economists are needed in a tech company,” Santitarn says.
Cindy Yeap is senior editor at The Edge
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