No time to relax when there’s so much to do, the ANZA Office finds.

It’s not common to head to a resort without kids and think ‘I need a holiday after this’ so shortly afterwards. For the ANZA office, we are heading to Treasure Bay Bintan to have a nice team-building trip – though sitting down is not what this place is about, it seems.

While it’s a tad cringe-worthy to adopt the word ‘glamping’ (or glamorous camping) Treasure Bay’s The Canopi is a series of well-dressed rooms made from strong materials you’d imagine would be how a city slicker with no camping experience would want a tent to be – four-pillared queen-size bed, large air con unit, television and al fresco bathroom. It’s easy to forget these are indeed tents and not four-walled buildings. In fact, these 40 tents were initially created for the workers while building the resort, but became the main attraction.

At first, arriving at the 338-hectare resort is not what you’d expect – entering through a brand new building that’ll soon be a collection of shops. It’s once you walk through and see the pièce de résistance – and the main focus of the resort – the bright blue lagoon situated in the middle of the resort. This $14 million crystal blue pool is actually filtered sea water, with the bright white protective flooring of the lagoon allowing the blue of the sea to really shine.

The view from the reception desk.

There’s a little journey to take along the lagoon to the check-in desk at the end of the lagoon, and this is where it gets fun. Hop into a 1920s Ford car replica and be taken down to the front desk, or try something a little more fun. There’s Segways, electric scooters and baby ATVs – you’ll be given a quick lesson on how to ride beforehand. Some of us had never used a Segway or electric scooter before, but we eventually pick up how to steer and turn – and even use the indicator for a bit of flair.

Most of the activities at The Canopi are water-focused. You’ll be hard-pressed to find something that you don’t like. There’s the two-seater electric bumper boats and standing paddle boards to wade around the lagoon.

The intricate inflatable ‘Wipeout’-style obstacle course will let kids live out their wild imaginations of surviving the entire course without falling into the water at least once. Everyone is encouraged to wear a life jacket on this just in case. What looks like two zipline wires is actually a wakeboarding pulley. To save on having to arrange boats or jetskis to pull eager wakeboarders along, these motorised wakeboarding handles can drag eager boarders along the water with ease.

For the more adventurous, brave and hopefully insured – we half-joke about this, as there’s little reason for concern – there’s the Jetovator. A water-propelled ‘vehicle’ that’s linked to a jetski via a water tube, three jets – one by your feet, and the other two controlled by controlling the levers – push the light metal frame you stand on.

It certainly looks complicated at first – and believe us, you’ll most likely fall a few times before getting it – but you’ll pick up the necessary skills to balance the nozzles and your body stature as you’re slowly lifting out of the water and hovering a few metres up. The falls do not hurt – a few of us practiced that part many a time.

The dirt-covered UTVs waiting for the next group to tread towards the jungle.

Those wanting to stay away from sea-based activities will take refuge in the off-road ATV and UTV rides. With a quick lesson beforehand, teams of three are whisked away by a guide on our own ATVs – sitting on an engine powering four wheels with tread deep enough to form piano keys in mud.

From the bumpy cement-dirt path to the red clay road, we head towards the forest – passing the trucks dropping off cargo for construction. The path then leads into a private forest path, and this is where you’re tested on your balance and understanding of gravity.

Hills escalate, and the biceps come a little into play as the four wheels take the grunt work to bring engine and body up. Surrounding us are trees shading us from the sun. The path gets thinner, and as a word of warning for those who aren’t as confident to ride an off-road vehicle, it’ll take some concentration to get through it all.

A very short trip from the main lagoon area is a mangrove that you can take a two-person kayak down. Here is where you’ll face all sorts of different sounds – from the nearby birds to the stream of water pouring over the paddles on each push. We also hear the occasional laughter from friends on other boats trying their best to keep the kayaks straight. The kayaks are not easy to tip – though we recommend not attempting to – and when the current is in your favour, makes for a relaxing paddle.

Paddling down the lagoon.

We weren’t so lucky at the beginning, and a little extra elbow grease was required to keep the boat from either going perpendicular to the current, or heading towards one of the low-hanging branches from the nearby trees. We’re accompanied by trained guides who will happily swing around to help out, though we’re too proud to ask for it during this bit.

Land and sea have been covered, but it’s the nearby Air Adventures ultralight seaplane ride that had us seeing the island from a few thousand feet above. The seaport, around 15 minutes’ drive from the resort, houses the XL-65 plane that will whisk passengers up high – with little to protect them but Stuart the experienced pilot who sits in front of you.

From above the neighbouring resorts like Nirwana Gardens, Laguna Bintan and Lagoi Bay can be spotted – the intensity of colour of the Crystal Lagoon is best seen from above. We are very fortunate to have the plane using the resort’s lagoon to pick us up – the pilot making each landing and take-off from the lagoon look seamless.

There’s a lot in store at the end of the year for the resort as well, with plans to extend the kayaking path and making a mangrove and forest walk.

If there are parents out there looking to keep their little ones occupied, couples looking to have a bit of fun – or work colleagues needing to do some planning away from the office – Treasure Bay Bintan is worth a shot.

One of The Canopi’s tents.

Exhausted from both the physical workout from the activities, and the successful planning meetings we had, the ANZA office came out of the two-day trip refreshed and ready to take on the future projects for this year and beyond.

We’d like to send a special thanks to our host Keith Ng, Treasure Bay Bintan for hosting the ANZA office for our team building trip and to Bintan Ferries for getting us all over there.

ANZA members receive 15{fad86f5e3336133246a213aa2a2588200b27e4ae08b3f6f25405093f2c4991ee} discount to all Treasure Bay rooms and activities – excluding the Jetovator. Click here for more information.

Tackling the enormous task of explaining big data in a visually appealing way is no easy feat, Gerard Ward finds.

The permanent exhibition at ArtScience Museum, Future World, brings a lot of what the younger generation loves about digital into the physical space – and back again. One exhibit lets kids scan in coloured in trucks, spaceships and buildings that are thrown on display on a big wall projection in 3D.

The newest generation are fully entrenched in the world with the internet, and wouldn’t know anything without it being in existence. But behind all of the fun and games of apps, websites and such, there’s a whole world of data – an incredible amount of data. From MRT cards and Facebook posts to weather patterns, what can data do for us, our cities and beyond?

This is where the current travelling exhibition at the same museum, Big Bang Data, is trying to answer through the use of a ton of data. Data can seem very cold and purely numeric in nature – and at times overwhelming, considering that for every second that passes, we create new data. There are 40,000 search queries every second just on Google alone – that’s 3.5 billion a day. You’ll most likely nod your head and agree hearing that 204 million emails are sent every minute.

What this exhibition tries to do is visualise the many aspects in which big data in its many forms can be understood. One exhibit looks at the timeline of data capacity, from the old punch cards of the 50s and cassette tapes in the 80s to USB drives. One art piece takes financial market trade and displays it like a constellation of living stars – with real-time data changing the brightness and interactions with other stars depending on trade activity. ‘I think to try to provide the tools for people to be able to engage in the conversation around [data] is very important,’ José Luis de Vicente, one of the curators of the exhibition tells me. ‘And I think the exhibition is a good language and device for that.’

José Luis de Vicente in front of a screen showing thousands of YouTube vlogs.

Olga Subirós, the other curator for the exhibition, talks about her background as an architect as an introduction to how art and data came together. ‘For the last 20 years I’ve been working very closely with creators, and also I’ve worked with artists,’ she says. ‘I found so many exhibitions that really stuck to their discipline, like “this is an art exhibition”, “this is a science exhibition” or “this is a historical exhibition”. They were like non-connected walls, and no exhibitions were talking about contemporary issues that have this historical relevance to them.’

Olga came to José when she was looking for someone to help visualise this unity between data and art. José has worked on projects previously that took data from city councils – something that’s now commonplace, but a decade ago was not easy – to visualise how traffic flows through Madrid for example, or bikes that travel through Barcelona on a given day – his team even mapped out an entire year of pollution in Madrid. Better understanding how a city acts and reacts can inform us on how to make systems work for us, not against.

Working together with the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, they eventually formed this collection of exhibits to better explain the different facets of data in our lives.

Most of what we hear lately with big data concerns leaks like the recent Panama Papers – demonstrated how this topic is ever-changing. ‘One of the things we have to incorporate is surveillance and social surveillance,’ José says. ‘With the Panama leaks, it’s another big example of how the more data there is, the harder it is to keep it secret.’

Olga Subirós explains the map of various underground tunnels linked between countries.

The importance and role of data in cities and the world today have also been a key driver on the conversation, especially here in Singapore. One of the exhibitions has three large touchscreens with data donated from Singaporean companies such as SingTel, visualising data in a way we can see on a map of country – such as the amount of traffic SingTel has during a 24-hour period based on the areas. ‘Those three screens was a collaboration with MIT Senseable City Lab, and was a milestone in terms of visualising data in a city, and it changed very much the perception of how to address city issues,’ Olga says. ‘That’s why it makes so much sense because Singapore was leading this area.’

One interesting exhibit comes from the technology that sits within shop windows, analysing passers-by. You may not have noticed it before, but not only can this technology detect whether you are directly looking at a shopfront, it uses algorithms to detect a person’s gender and age. José says when this was shown to people seeing the exhibition in Barcelona, ‘it’s suddenly uncomfortable’ for those who didn’t realise this was happening.

The worst part is the inaccuracies – a woman walking past is detected as a man, for example. This demonstrates how cold algorithmic analysis can’t be relied upon 100 percent. ‘Everyone who runs this kind of system says “Yeah, but it’s anonymised data and we’re not tracking anybody, we’re not interested in that”,’ José explains. ‘Explaining that to a group one day during a visit, I suddenly realised this is also a smart city, you know? A smart city is not only sustainable, tech-savvy, and energy efficient ideas, it’s a city acting in ways which sometimes you’re not expecting to be subjected to.’

’24 Hrs in Photos’ by Eric Kessels.

This led to the discussion of free wifi in shopping centres – something Singapore and most cities around the world offer. ‘When you go to a shopping mall, and you want to get on wifi, and there’s free wifi that requires you to give access with your Facebook profile, the shopping centre’s giving you free wifi,’ José begins. ‘But you’re giving them every detail about your profile on Facebook, you know, as a potential customer. Then of course, is it worth it, really?’

‘We are in a situation where we’re not putting a price [on anonymity], and we’re not having this discussion,’ José says. He tells me about how the perception of “I have nothing to hide” should really be “Actually, you have no idea you have nothing to hide”. ‘Once you’re in, you don’t know in three years down the line, or five or even ten years down the line, how your circumstances are going to change,’ he says. ‘And the information that you gave at a specific moment in time may look completely different once your circumstances change.’

‘It’s not just about what is going to happen in the future, it’s going on right now,’ Olga adds. ‘In the United States, if you want a mortgage online, you have to also enter your Facebook profile. It’s not just about tracking you and seeing who you are, but who are your friends, relatives, and the risks you have to calculate risks.
‘Why is it legal? It’s almost illegal, because technology goes so fast that there’s no policies to balance that. This is the aim of the exhibition.’

‘Data.Tron’ by Ryoji Ikeda.

While it all seems a bit daunting, this isn’t what the exhibition is all about. Trying to describe something as huge as big data to those who aren’t familiar with all its facets is a challenging topic – I’m interested in this, and there at times I’m perplexed.

I ask about the favourite of the pieces in the exhibition – a dumb question to ask the curators, I realise as I say it. Olga’s answer to one of the many she mentions is 24 Hrs in Photos by Eric Kessels – a gorgeous wave of every single photo uploaded to the photo website Flickr in 24 hours. ‘That mountain of photos really…when visitors have to step on the photos, and maybe there is a baby’s face there, or a couple kissing, then they realise what it means to upload all these intimate photos.’

Big Bang Data is running at ArtScience Museum until 16 October.

The scientist-turned-explorer is next in the series of talks run by National Geographic. Albert talks about how he stumbled on one of the most significant figures in history.

Your education is in Materials Science and Engineering, but how did you bring yourself over to something like anthropology?
I think we are all anthropologists, trying to make sense of this human experience. Science and Engineering have always been important to me because it is the combination of curiosity with problem-solving. But after finishing my last degree I realised that what I was most curious about was existential. That’s why I started searching for answers in the exploration of the past, present and future but applying an engineering mindset to how I go about it.

How did you come across the story of Genghis Khan, and what interested you about his life?
Many years ago I travelled alone to Mongolia on the Trans-Siberian Railway in search of some connection to my deep ancestral past. There I became friends with an amazing Mongolian man who agreed to show me the countryside by car and horse. Throughout our journey small things that we would come across would trigger stories of Genghis Khan, and quickly I realised his history is very much alive in the everyday experiences of any Mongolian. Subsequently, when I started diving into the literature I was hooked.

Here was a person who changed the course of human history, but from the position of an outcaste nomad amidst the turbulent waters of tribal warfare. And although he created the largest contiguous empire in human history – in landmass and population – we know partially nothing about him.

Having grown up in the West, where you learn about Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar, but not Genghis Khan…I wanted to change that.

What kind of research went into digging into the backstory of this historical figure?
My team and I scoured through every piece of historical literature I could find. I also spent a lot of time with a few key Mongolian historians, Professor Shagdaryn Bira and Professor Tsogt Ishdorj – heroes of a nation that was emerged from decades of cultural repression with a strong sense of self-identify.

Did you come across any obstacles along the way?
Too many to recount, from politics to wolves to flash floods to suffocating swarms of flies. We were entering into a land that has not been open to exploration for over 800 years.

You’ve travelled far and wide in your adventures. Where have you been recently that took your breath away?
I just returned from a new project in Xian, at the burial site of First Emperor of China. This is home to the iconic Terracotta Army warriors, but so much more.

What’s one piece of equipment you can’t live without at work?
Tabasco sauce!

Chasing Ancient Mysteries With Albert Lin is on 30 August at Esplanade Theatres on the Bay.

Recent dog foster parent Catherine Flanagan talks about her experience taking in a stray dog from Save Our Street Dogs.

Have you ever pondered “I’d love to own a dog, but maybe that’s too difficult while living in Singapore…”? Well, fostering a dog provides an opportunity to experience rewards of dog ownership without long-term complications. SOSD (Save Our Street Dogs) is a charity organisation relying entirely on donations to fund the whole operation.

A large and dedicated team of passionate volunteers manage its extensive services, primarily monitoring, rescuing and rehabilitating Singapore’s stray dogs to hopefully find their ‘forever homes’.

Under typical circumstances, rescued street dogs are placed in SOSD’s animal shelter for their rehoming program. However in particular cases when the shelter is unable to provide adequate space or the right environment, SOSD seeks foster homes.

When rescued street dogs have suffered a traumatic experience, require surgery, rest and rehabilitation, or there’s the occasional litter of puppies requiring more attention than the shelter can provide, fosterers provide an invaluable step towards the eventual rehoming of these dogs. Over the preferred two-month minimum time-frame, along with providing a safe, secure environment including adequate food, drink, exercise and basic training, fostering requires observing the dog’s character during its stay.

Obviously a street dog’s behaviour will be affected as it learns to become part of a family unit, no longer relying on stealth and cunning as a sole stray or pack member. This progress provides critical feedback for SOSD, who offers the fosterer support every step of the way.

So how did we come to foster a dog? Having owned dogs over many years, we had the prerequisite experience. Our most recent dog passed away late last year and as our overwhelming grief gradually subsided, serendipity played its part. Mid-March, SOSD posted a video on Facebook desperately seeking a foster home for an adult stray dog called ‘Sunrise’. The dog had been discovered hiding in an underground gravesite by cemetery caretakers who promptly alerted SOSD.

Upon rescue, they realised she had a severely injured tail and took her directly to one of their associated vet clinics. Without this intervention, Sunrise would probably have died alone from the severe infection. Following her operation, Sunrise required regular wound dressing, rest and rehabilitation.

A picture of Sunrise.

Given such desperate circumstances, I realised we could help. We still had our dog’s belongings, and we worked from home, so we could provide the attention needed. I confirmed our offer through SOSD’s website then happily arranged dog beds, bowls, toys and blankets. With Sunrise still under veterinary care, a SOSD representative visited us to ensure our foster home’s suitability. Their on-site assessment and information exchange proved helpful.

Collection day arrived. With excitement – balanced by trepidation – we met our SOSD representative at the vet clinic. Enter, Sunrise: a trembling pooch with ‘movie-star’ eyes, still recovering from anaesthesia, clearly not enjoying being the centre of attention. Essential calmness prevailed and with antibiotics, iodine and bandages in hand, we set off for home.

There, we introduced Sunrise to our property, inside and outside. Firstly, leading Sunrise to the area where we wanted her to relieve herself, repeating ‘prompt’ words to create future association. Then we led her through the areas where we were happy for her to go. In most domesticated dog cases, puppies rarely enter into an area where they have not been introduced. We weren’t sure if the same applied for an adult street dog, but thought it worth a try. Introductions over, Sunrise was happy to lie down, curl up and sleep, sleep, sleep!

Over the next two weeks, we regularly changed her dressing, allowed her space to come to terms with her new situation, provided regular reassuring contact plus some structure to her day. Sunrise appeared content with her new situation but was cautious about showing any playful enthusiasm at first, as if fearful to let her true sweet nature show.

However over several weeks, we witnessed a butterfly-like metamorphosis as our timid foster dog blossomed into an adorable, genteel lady – the quietest, least demanding dog we had ever met. Initially, we were unsure how much of this angelic behaviour was due to her slow recovery from the operation versus an intrinsic part of her street dog primal instincts.

We were delighted when Sunrise’s all-day lethargy became little bursts of energy between regular naps, which didn’t strain our home office-based lifestyle. After each nap, Sunrise performed a very dainty stretch. Her behaviour then started to vary on a daily basis; episodes of heartening progress contrasted moments of entrenched jumpiness or fear. We juggled attention, encouragement, patience and firm correction, always ending with positive reassurance. Where Sunrise once approached us with caution, she now approached us confident of a pat and a cuddle from us.

Our most significant training exercise occurred after we discovered Sunrise would not walk beyond our front gate. When she had fully recovered, on leash, we cajoled her out to the street-front. Once there she firmly planted her feet, refusing to budge, clearly wary of the great unknown. Recalling some sage advice – “The only time to train an animal is when you have more time and patience than they do” – I sat alongside Sunrise at a leash’s length away, tugged firmly a few times, then waited. After a long pause she sidled up to me. After some verbal encouragement, I moved away again, tugged, waited and after another long pause, she moved closer. Fast-forward a few days, Sunrise was happily trotting around the neighbourhood with us!

For longer-term obedience training, it should prove helpful that Sunrise, like most street-dogs, has a strong food drive. Street dogs also distinguish themselves through their heightened senses, especially at night time. Sunrise’s highly sensitive hearing means when we are on our walks, she detects a car coming and attempts to move out of its way, well before we hear or see it. Her extremely keen eyesight distinguishes every person and dog we encounter on our walks, long before we do. However Sunrise conducts her most endearing performance when she doesn’t want to go anywhere – she will simply hit the deck and her whole body becomes completely limp. When we physically encourage her up again, she eventually agrees to stand, thereby conceding surrender. Quite an effective delaying tactic!

Our most rewarding development occurred a few weeks after Sunrise’s tail bandages were removed. At first, she often looked back to where her formerly long tail would have been, but didn’t wag her remaining short, stumpy tail. Gradually, along with her growing trust in us, we noticed a tentative tail-wag. Now we’re delighted to see Sunrise enthusiastically tail-wags every morning when she greets us, clearly happily adapting to her new life as a family pet. Some socialisation work with people and dogs remains but with SOSD providing behavioural assistance at the shelter, Sunrise should soon become someone’s beloved companion in her ‘forever home’. Our fostering helped start Sunrise on her new journey. We hope our experience might encourage you to try fostering a dog from SOSD as well.

There are a number of criteria the fosterer must fulfil to qualify, which SOSD specify on their website.