no point to keep going back in time. different eras require different strategies. can't keep rehashing the same formula. what worked then will not work now. at bedok south, this jap panasonic eyesore is sitting on prime land opposite the bedok mrt station, and the products it churns out have reached end of life. why is the factory still there? it can afford to idle and do nothing because the land lease, incentives given, and tax breaks it enjoys are very long term, and panasonic and many other obsolete factories in light industrial zones then and prime locations now have very little incentives to cease operations and vacate. no industry in sg except f&b hawker style (now food court style) can last for 50 years. sg needs to renew herself like an auntie going under the knife at a korean cosmestic surgeon every few years or so. otherwise she will resemble sinkie auntie taxi drivers. one area is software and another is biotech: genome and stem cell research. my friend's daughter who is a triple post-doc is making breakthroughs with using extremely sensitive dna detection methods that can isolate species and the type of microorganisms in the ocean just by scooping up a sample in a test tube. they have mapped pretty much a majority of the known marine species' genomes on their cloud. sg can do something similar - a universal depository, giant data miner, and ai mastermind of every bodily molecule exchanged, sexual wave including audio groans and moans cumming out of geylang for a start. if she can pinpoint who is sleeping with who, the whole world will gravitate towards sg for answers.