Weekly Update 07.28 - 08.10
Singapore to Sarawak + Back Again
After getting a chance to meet up with my old friends Brandon + Splyce in Ubud (I should write a whole separate post on that), I landed in Singapore with Emily at the end of a whirlwind month of travel. Singapore always struck me as the crossroads of SE Asia so I wanted to dive in and see firsthand what it was like in the tiny citystate. So many libertarians sang the holy praises of the country and I immediately disliked it. Not 5 minutes into being in the country and I was told that I couldn't sit without buying something, there was an overwhelming amount of cameras, the sheer amount of regulations, rules and signs saying you couldn't do things were everywhere. Maybe I was grumpy from lack of sleep but I was hoping to catch up with some other punks in the area. That might perk me up.
I got to Myyk's place and dropped my bags. Myyk is my brother from another mother. He and I met just the week prior and immediately hit it off because he was wearing a Nic Cage t-shirt. We talked endlessly geeking out about video games and travels and started an electronic project together for a personal cooling device. He's a true mate + was going through some hard times so I really enjoyed sharing some time bopping around Singapore eating our body weight in food. I also got a chance to fix my backpack at the local library makerspace.
After a day of orienting myself, I hosted the Biopunk Meetup over at Brewerkz with a good 15 or so people. We had biohackers in from all over. Funny enough I was surprised by talking about my friend Yuki with a team I'm advising (who I hadn't seen in years who is based in Japan) and then having him randomly show up not 10 minutes later. I got to catch up with him on all things cultured meat, got to see more of the dinacon crew, meet up with some iconoclastic investors, other funky entrepreneurs and Singapore locals.
The following day some of the Dinahomies popped over to see the Iris Van Herpen exhibit at the ArtScience Museum. IT WAS SO COOL. I loved the biophilic designs, the shape and drape of the innovative materials flowing and the innovative forms. I could have spent hours there and came away so inspired. We also got a chance to go to the red dot museum which championed all the design awards and I took copious notes and tons of pictures.
Some of the best parts of Singapore have to do with the food. The restaurant culture is incredible. Food is really cheap and the people are relatively wealthy + there isn't space for kitchen so people mostly eat out. Myyk was the perfect tour guide taking me around to all his favorite spots between some fun errands like going to Sim Lim tower to find some electronics for our project. Adeline (my other really close Singaporean friend) took us to Peranakan food which was mind-blowing. It's like the cajun/creole community of the archipelago in SE Asia; a blend of indo-chinese-malay cultures. They don't say "I love you" often, but people do say "have you eaten" and "let me get you food" which means the same thing. It was so heartwarming getting dinner with Myyk + Adeline.
The following day I got a chance to visit the Network School with Adeline and our new friend Goku. They sent a car for us which already lent itself to a bit more of the mystery surrounding the place. NS is a project of Balaji Srinvasan who has written extensively about Network Societies. Building off of crypto and decentralized communities, NS is his first experiment bridging the digital world into the physical on a half-built island off the coast of Singapore. This techno-libertarian paradise is what happens when you gather a few hundred digital nomads and plant them in a chinese ghost city.
Surprisingly when we pulled up my friend Mikhail was riding a bike around which already put me at ease. Funny that the world is quite small and you tend to encounter brilliant people in places all over the world. It wasn't even a month ago that I was seeing him at Frontier Tower. The island is beautiful, a tropical paradise with solarpunk building and most everyone living out of a luxury hotel. There's a big focus on work (being isolated on an island and all) but I was also pleasantly surprised at the community and how tight-knit they seemed. Everyone was working on a project and we showed up a bit early to listen to James discuss Arc, his city-building project. It was fascinating to wander around and get a sense of the scale of the space. There are ~25,000 apartments and most of them are empty. We got a bite of lunch (included in the $1500/mo member fee) and got a little tour from Leonardo who showed us the Eco Museum where I might build a teaching lab.
We then wandered back + I gave a talk in the library but had to move because of the noise of construction. They're really investing in infrastructure and we shifted my talk on how to build lab spaces to the gym which is emblematic of the three current tenants of NS: learn, earn and burn. There's a focus on health + longevity with people working out every day, locked in and focused on building their various startups. I had a chance to chat a bit more with Jackson who helps lead community there and Adeline got a chance to connect with him. I know I'll be back and I hope building a lab there soon.
Going back to Singapore was a shift in perspective. I attended a Techbrews talk hosted by Terrence Tan where merxis (the first Singaporean biotech unicorn doing diagnostics) was speaking. We talked quite a bit about kiasu, this chinese philosophy of protecting yourself from risk, fomo and not sticking your neck out. It seems quite hard for Singaporean entrepreneurs.
That was confirmed with a meeting with Mathieu who I met with Harold. He's been growing platelets to replace FBS as part of a Temasek-funded cellular agriculture project for the past 3 years, but the government money was just at the beginning and it's been a struggle to get funding so he's moving to SF. I offered help with introductions and setting him up with some housing. I'm excited to hang more with him soon. Really cool project and crazy stories of how he got his platelets.
At the end of the week we wrapped up with Shalaka + Mariana coming into town to go to a Jyoty concert as a mini dinacon reunion. We met up with Saad for breakfast/coffee and toured the SG Hackerspace, then got ready to dance. The concert was so so so good. It seemed like all the alt kids in SG were there in the corner sweaty room of an Indian bank building. The nondescript place was PACKED and I really needed to throw some ass. We danced until the early morning, grabbed some late night supper and collapsed back at Myyk's place.
Everyone was set to depart including me after that but rather than going to Cambodia to run a marathon at Angkor Wat like I planned, there was a little border conflict that made it so it would be a bit dangerous to be there. I didn't think I was faster than bullets and the state department seemed to agree. The cheapest flight out of Singapore to another place for the week was recommended to me by Adeline. She said I had to go to Kuching to meet Josh. Since I also had some previous communication when I was doing algae work with the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre there, I figured it would be a fun jaunt + one of the first times I'd get to spend alone in a long while. I bid goodbye to the homies and jetted out.
Josh is one of the most kind + welcoming people I've ever met. He met me immediately at the hotel and took me around to see the sights. Josh is emblematic of some friends I have in places that I call "fixers" - these are locals who know everyone as superconnectors, are wonderful tour guides, and help you orient to a new place. He showed me his dog rescue + we talked endlessly about plans for community, how to take care of these pups, his dreams + journey as an entrepreneur... Sarawak is beautiful + I know I'll return there soon. The first night we went out with his cousins (everyone is a cousin) until 4am + did the same thing the following day. The main hangout spot was the Junk, the local bar that's covered in recovered items from a junkyard. Josh knew everyone + we shot pool with Van + Darren + the bartender/owner kept feeding us drinks. We went to dinner with his mother who's a veritable powerhouse of a woman, sharp as a tack. I learned about her story of recovery from cancer + her commitment to the indigenous communities in the area as well as how she established the dog rescue after a governmental mandate that paid people to cull stray dogs.
The Dog Bark is an outpouring of that love. It's so wonderful to see the pups roam and play. We got native Borneo food and I learned a bit more about the local culture and how it differs from west Malaysia, the influence of the Indonesians moving the capital to the island and the importance + connection to the jungle. The following day Josh was leaving to go to a wedding and I was sad to see him go but sent him off with a full belly and tons of jokes/stories. I got an early Grab to the orangutan sanctuary and saw one in the wild. It's this strange kind of mirror to our own experience, looking and getting a sense that that kind of animal could be you in a different timeline.
I then bopped over to the biodiversity centre for some meetings with their team and some laksa for lunch. It was really cool to meet the team in-person that I had only talked to online and we spent a few hours going over their existing database of rare + unique species only found on Borneo. They have thousands and thousands and a program to pay dividends to the native tribes in the region to protect and cultivate these species. After doing some perfumery, the fragrances are fascinating and the medicinals are really compelling. I think that there might be a partnership with the entrepreneurs at NS to do something there in the future...
After all the nonstop experiences, I needed some quiet + to stay put a bit. I camped out in a hotel + except for meeting up with Van a few times to grab food and tour around Kuching a bit, mostly reflected on my time so far in SE Asia. The quiet was a welcome respite. I flew out back to Singapore for some more alone time.
Part of the point of my journey was to have more time by myself to reflect/plan/learn and prep for what I'd like to do next. The alone time at Myyk's apartment in Singapore was really lovely. Timing didn't quite work out to meet Balaji to put together a plan for the lab (which was the other reason I went back to Singapore) but I took some little trips around the island to learn more about the local culture, in particular to the Hell's Museum which affected me in a somewhat significant way. Thinking deeply about death and the linear vs circular ways to approach time anxiety, the melding of cultural and religious traditions in the region... and of course the weird statues there just kicked off a lot of thoughts about my place and time in this world.
One of the highlights was getting a beer and some chicken rice with a few Australian transhumanists like Peter Xing and Ayse Sue. Really lovely to chat about how humanity might go extinct (in our current form) gracefully. I also got a chance to do karaoke with Adeline + one of her old friends.
Because I had made a commitment to run a marathon, I looked at the distance across Singapore and decided to attempt running across the country. The problem with that is that it's crazy hot, and it's monsoon season, and there's so much construction it's actually quite difficult to run from place-to-place. That didn't stop me attempting and I did a half-marathon in the middle of a rainstorm starting at noon and getting quite lost before my legs became jello and the sun started going down.
I grabbed one last dinner with Adeline and left for Taiwan the next morning.
What I'm doing:
Building the biotech community I wish I had when I started. I’ve done a slight reorg of the order of operations after a deep discussion with my new boss (more on that later).
Lab ☑️ → Marketplace → Fund → Media → Events → House → Clinics/Trials
I’m organizing little events in the different places I’m going to gather the biopunk community wherever they are in the world. I’m planning a few things while on the road again in the various cities I’m in.
North Star Metric/Goals:
Words Written per 2 weeks - ??? (this post is late, need to be more consistent)
Lab members 58, +4 interns - aiming for 80 soon
Labs opened… (I want to start expanding to other locations)
Prospects: Prospera, NS, NYC…
What I did last two weeks:
Traveled to Singapore, Kuching, Singapore, Taiwan
Made cool sunglasses (I think I’ll opt for white ones that I can write on)
Ate EVERYTHING in Singapore
Highlights: dosas, Native, hawkers, peranakan food
Hell’s Museum, Red Dot, ArtScience Iris Van Herpen
Biopunk Meetup in SG
Sim Lim Tower for electronic parts
Set up potential partnership with NS
Set up potential partnership with Sarawak Biodiversity Centre
Jyoty concert!
Played with dogs at the Dog Bark
Karaoke
Australia Transhumanist meetup
Ran across Singapore
Lesson(s) learned:
Having a “fixer” in a location makes a huge difference
This week's focus:
Since I’m writing a recap a bit late, I don’t quite know what I was focused on… mostly travel back to the states + some prep for SF.
Biopunk
Biopunk backend community management
Biopunk lab onboarding Notion
Biopunk website edits
BSL2 lab
Extra
Basement party guide
Synbio skill tree (extra)
Biopunk House summer trial
Biopunk Fund deck draft
WORK
Biodexic
Replicate the awesome work David did but for protein production
Ask:
Anyone want me to build a lab?
Intro me to people during my travels (starting Sept 3):
Pittsburgh
NYC
London
Berlin
Valencia
Barcelona
DC
Richmond
Durham
Atlanta
Orlando
AustinOffer:
Come co-work in the tower with the biopunk community on the 8th floor on Fridays
Love this!