I attended an event on Wed evening that was organized by a group of old boys from my Alma Mater. That was the highlight of my week. It was fun and stimulating as the topics of the speakers of the event were so close to my heart.
Not only because it was a gathering of old boys and girls that made it so easy to connect with (thanks to our common school heritage) but the speakers in the event had also talked about the topics I strongly believe in – Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence are converging topics and slowly becoming subsets of each other. They may eventually help to address the existential threat that we are facing on earth – climate change.
A few months ago, a cohort of classmates from the Secondary 4 class of 1984 decided to step up and form the Raffles Business Network (RBN) to tap into the alumni network for the benefit of the school and its old boys. It was a long time coming as the previous incumbent alumni leadership team had been largely passive and unwilling to make full use of the power of the alumni to tasp it for the potential to organize beneficial activities to pay it forward back to the school.
This large untapped resource is so full of diverse experienced people from all sectors who can contribute back to society in a meaningful way. Many are also on the halftime journey may want to pivot to a higher purpose in life rather than just on material gains alone.
This group of commendable old boys from the class of 1984 is determined to change all that. They question why other schools can do a better job of engaging their alumni, even though ours has a richer and deeper legacy of more than 200 years of history since its founding in 1823. If not now, then when? That was their war cry.
They actively engaged the various parties of the alumni network and associations, to brainstorm on collaborative workstreams rather than as standalone parties that currently are not communicating with each other for years. A comprehensive game plan was also mapped out as to how they can engage alumni members to come together to work for the good of future generations.
One of the initiatives was to create a mentorship program where seasoned alumni can be matched with those who just started in their careers to provide career coaching. The other was to curate events for business networking to get alumni from all years to interact and form connections.
They reached out to old boys and girls for venues to organize these events and attracted a lot of alumni to sign up. The first event was a roaring success even though there was a charge of $25 per head. More than 100+ attended and there was even a waitlist.
This week, they had their 2nd RBN event that was kindly sponsored by the Bank of Singapore (BOS), titled “Shaping the future of finance”. Again the response was huge and 130 attended. Coincidentally, there were so many prominent alumni in the BOS team too, starting from the CEO to important members of the management team.
The speakers also talked about relevant topics like AI and Sustainability, and how they are converging into a rising area of focus in the near future to provide solutions to solving big-picture issues like climate change and new tech/medical breakthroughs. A prominent CEO of a successful homegrown quant fund also spoke about how his industry has evolved.
The after-event dinner was a great way for all of us to connect with various alumni from different years. Given that we were from the same school, it was easier to establish new business contacts due to our common school heritage.
I had the pleasure of talking to so many people and sharing about our company’s sustainable investment fund. It was also refreshing to meet some younger alumni and knowing what they are doing in their careers. Some were freshly out of school and phasing into uni life soon. We shared our life experiences with them and offered our perspectives on career choices.
Overall, an interesting evening of fellowship and meeting new friends who share a common history of having attended a school with a rich 200+ years of existence. I felt revitalised by the event, knowing that the school is continuously producing highly motivated graduates for the future of our country.
It makes all of us want to give back to the school in various ways to ensure that this rich tradition is maintained and enhanced by new efforts from RBN.
Auspicium Melioris Aevi – Hope of a better age.
Leave a Reply