Tag: business

Placemaking | Urban |

The Neighbourhood: The Challenge For Downtown KL

We last spoke to Shin Tseng, one of the co-founders of the iconic retail, arts and community hub, REXKL, late last year (November 2020). He outlined some of the challenges that this placemaking icon and its tenants had faced over the first year of the pandemic, and detailed some of the creative pivots, like an inner city farmer’s market, that the building had undergone to try to better serve the downtown community....

Reflexive City | Urban |

REX Revisited: Imagining A Creative And Cultural District

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been speaking about the Kuala Lumpur Creative and Cultural District and the blueprint for change it represents. We spoke to Think City’s Matt Benson about the genesis of the KLCCD as well as PNB President and Group CEO Zulqarnain Onn about the recently launched Merdeka 118 Community Grants Programme....

KLCCD
Placemaking | Urban |

Creative And Cultural Districts: Imagination – The Roadmap To Recovery

Think City recently announced the launch of the first part of an ambitious new urban regeneration project, the Kuala Lumpur Creative and Cultural District, a wide-ranging initiative that it is spearheading in the downtown areas of KL. That phase, a Community Grants Programme linked to the landmark Merdeka 118 development, was created by PNB Merdeka Ventures Sdn. Berhad (PMVSB), a wholly owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB). Concentrating on sports, arts, heritage and business, its focus is on initiatives that will have a positive impact on the local community in the precincts surrounding Merdeka 118....

Merdeka 118
Placemaking | Urban |

Merdeka 118 Community Grants Programme: Releasing The Untapped Potential Of Downtown KL

Over the past decade, downtown Kuala Lumpur has been a particular focus of Think City’s work in Kuala Lumpur. As Think City Programme Director Matt Benson reminded The Citymaker in a recent podcast, Building A New Creative And Cultural District for KL, it’s not only the heritage core of Kuala Lumpur, containing a wealth of cultural assets, it’s also the iconic area in which Malaysia’s independence was declared. ...

MSME Day
Community | COVID-19 |

Automatic For The People: Myths And MSME Day 2021

On 27th June we celebrate the UN’s Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (MSME) Day. According to data provided by the International Council for Small Business (ICSB), MSMEs make up over 90% of all firms and account, on average, for 70% of total employment and 50% of GDP. They are the heart of our economies and our communities, providing employment and much needed services. ...

The Awakening. The People Building Strong Networks For Women
Business | Reflexive City |

The Awakening. The People Building Strong Networks For Women

AwakenHub is a resource hub and community in Ireland, whose mission is to foster and support women entrepreneurs in Ireland and create a more vibrant start-up culture. The site hosts online events, workshops and mentoring sessions where women founders can network and share their experiences. This week, The Citymaker speaks to one of its co-founders, the strategist, speaker and serial entrepreneur Mary Carty, about the hub, the wider issues that women face when starting businesses, and some of the ways that similar models could be used to develop information and experience sharing communities for women founders in Malaysia. ...

Placemaking | Urban |

Penang Bay Ideas: An Exciting Social Win For SDG Zones

The Penang State Government recently announced the top prize winners of the Penang Bay International Ideas Competition. Launched in August 2020, the competition was designed to invite innovative ideas from around the world to transform the Penang Bay area into a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) compliant city zone and economic area. ...

The Knowledge that Creates Better Cities
Climate | Community | Heritage | Urban |

The Understanding that Creates Better Cities

We're in the middle of an increasingly complicated and contentious conversation about data, its ownership and its uses. As individuals, we increasingly see the kind of data gathered by big technology firms as a threat to our privacy, especially as the commercialization and commodification of that data has given rise to new forms of governance and economic power, especially in cities, as outlined in the theory of surveillance capitalism devised by the social psychologist and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff....

On The Trail Of Data
Business | Reflexive City |

On The Trail Of Data: Better Cities and Reflexive Analysis

Last week we talked to Aishwariya Krishna Kumar about Think City’s role in establishing NGOhub’s Homeless Services Registry. This week we speak to Joel Goh, a senior Analyst at Think City, about the growing role of realtime and near-realtime data in helping to shape urban policies and strategies and to provide instant feedback to make those policies more reflexive and adaptable. ...

Zoom Towns
Business | Reflexive City |

Zoom Towns: New Cities At Work

On this week’s The Reflexive City, we take a look at the Zoom Town phenomenon and examine some of the innovations and policies that cities are enacting to attract remote working talent, like the $10,000 relocation bonus that Tulsa Remote offers. Matt and Maya are joined in the virtual studio by future work specialist and global native, Lauren Razavi....

Business Community Pulse Check
Business | COVID-19 |

Reading the Pulse of Malaysia’s Downtown Businesses in 2021

As Malaysia undergoes its second major movement control order, Think City has released its first Malaysia Business Community Pulse Check Report, conducted in the third quarter of 2020. Focusing on the downtown areas of Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and George Town, the survey was designed to develop an understanding of the market conditions that business operators have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic...

Pulse Check
COVID-19 | Reflexive City |

The Community Pulse Check

This week we’re continuing the work-based theme and discuss the Malaysia Business Community Pulse Check Report, the result of a Think City Survey. An overview of the community-level effects of COVID-19 on individual Malaysian businesses in 2020, we speak to one of the report’s analysts, Joel Goh, senior manager and data specialist at Think City, about the report, its findings and its future. ...

Mobility | Placemaking |

The New Global Natives: Discover Your Next Home

Given how hard it is to travel in the current climate, it might seem like a strange time to be talking about digital nomads and global natives, those lucky workers who have managed to escape from the constraints of the nine to five, the office cubicle and the commute and have created career opportunities for themselves that allow them to travel and work remotely....

Urban |

2021: The Unstable Currency Of Uncertainty

As we continue to grapple with the uncertainty of 2020, the idea of what 2021 has in store may be too exhausting to contemplate. Bleak as it may seem, there are bright spots on the horizon. ...

Community | Reflexive City |

Impossible Foods And Ghost Kitchens: Their Resourceful Rise

Matt and Maya begin to look forward to 2021 and outline the rising popularity of plant-based meat alternatives like the Impossible Burger as part of a healthier diet and as a more sustainable way for the global food industry to meet the world’s growing protein needs. On the flip side, they also discuss the emerging Ghost Kitchens phenomenon and how it can provide coworking food preparation spaces and entrepreneurial cultivation services for food startups, particularly within underprivileged communities. ...

Business | COVID-19 | Urban |

The Strange Year Of WFH

Matt Armitage

It’s been a minute. If there’s one phrase that perfectly sums up 2020, that could be it. A year that has seemed both endless and fleeting. We’ve drifted through it in a blur of groundhog days punctuated by fear and uncertainty. For those of us fortunate enough to have kept our jobs, or found new ones, and have been able to work from home, the last vestiges of work-life balance have probably disappeared. ...

COVID-19 | Reflexive City |

Pandemic Pioneers: Inspiring Moments of 2020

As we head Into the final month of this strange year, we’re changing up the format of the next few shows to bring you some of the major stories that have marked or Inspired us this year. This week, the role that new working practices have played in keeping us safe from the coronavirus in 2020, and how those same safeguards may be used against us in the future....