#9: Our first check-in with you!
Move over explainers - Team SEAmplified's taking over the spotlight with this one.
“Southeast Asia is here, but also not here.”
That was a professor’s opening remark for a course on Southeast Asian Studies in my freshman year. It was puzzling at first, then enlightening; Nine years on, its significance still gives me so much food for thought.
Before the statement hit home, I held my own parochial view of the region: If Singapore is progress, then Southeast Asia is backwardness, and there is little, if anything at all, that Singapore could learn from the region.
That illusion was wholly shattered in 2016, when I ventured abroad on an overseas internship with the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It showed me that not only was my view of Southeast Asia gravely mistaken, but it also denied me many opportunities just lying within arm’s length.
I also realized that perhaps I didn’t know Southeast Asia at all. My view was just one Singaporean’s (misinformed) view of the region, and I had not yet begun to understand the stories that Southeast Asia was waiting to tell.
That’s what inspired me to co-found SEAmplified. To me, it’s an attempt to uncover some of those stories, and tell them in a way that gets my peers moving.
As a former journalist, SEAmplified’s current structure also plays to my strengths. As SEAmplified endeavors towards more unique insights, it’s also an exercise in keeping my journalistic senses sharp.
What’s more inspiring is that SEAmplified is a four-man effort, and each of us embarked on very different journeys that brought us to the same destination. Our content usually takes centerstage, but we’d like to finally put ourselves in the spotlight for once.
Hello! I am Zhan Tiam, co-founder of SEAmplified.
I have often been asked—what made me start SEAmplified?
I would say that my longstanding interests in politics, education, and the media are some of the reasons behind my decision. But that’s not all!
During my startup stint in Jakarta last year, I spoke to Indonesian youths who are interested in Southeast Asia. I was intrigued by their thoughts on the 2024 Indonesian elections, and they were surprised when I shared that there’s a presidential election in Singapore in 2023.
Conversations like these made me realize how little we know about each other, but there’s so much we can learn from each other too.
Hence, SEAmplified was born. I hope that this newsletter can help you understand how politics will affect your aspirations and prospects; and inspire you to stay curious and explore the unexplored!
Hi there, I'm Qing Lin and I am someone who is interested in finding out about things relating to geopolitics, social issues, and technology.
My interest kind of started during my JC days, where I read more news as Politics was my pet topic for GP :) I have a business background by training, and I am in Strategy and Operations by profession.
One Southeast Asian encounter that resonates with me is the chaotic yet efficient nature of the road-crossings in Ho Chi Minh City. I liked how it is not as structured, but it kind of works for everyone using the road (except for the tourists).
Hello! I'm Kelvin and I am currently an Economics student at NUS! I have always been very interested in the areas of education, health, and social issues and hope to delve into these respective topics while understanding their intersections within the context of Southeast Asia.
An interesting observation that I have of Southeast Asia is how friendly the locals not only towards each other but also towards the foreigners. I have always felt welcomed when travelling around countries in the region :)
It has been an exciting two months running the newsletter so far, and we’ve also celebrated some wins along the way:
scoring an interview with the experts at RSIS and ISEAS,
seeing industry veterans become our subscribers, and
landing close to 100 newsletter subscribers since launch.
All of these milestones would not have been possible without your feedback and support.
That said, we still don’t know each and every one of you. We still scratch our heads wondering why some readers have tucked into every single issue, while others haven’t opened a single one.
If you have just five minutes to spare, we’d love for you to tell us more about yourself, and what SEAmplified can do for you at this survey link: https://forms.gle/zrLiFrsmSK9LGBNP9
Every conversation the team and I’ve had with readers like yourself has convinced us that there’s still so much that we can do to make Southeast Asian politics more relevant to youths. We realize that some tweaks are in order, and major overhauls are in the pipeline over the next few issues.
What might these overhauls mean?
For one, we’re tweaking the newsletter format. Our explainers resonated well with many readers, but most also found them too random and lacking in depth.
That leads us to point two, which is narrowing our scope. Our Initial focus was to illustrate how Southeast Asia’s politics shapes the region’s labor market, but we’ve found that it was too broad. That also meant that it was not only difficult for us to speak clearly to a specific audience, but also difficult for us to build expertise in any particular field.
Finally, we’re also switching up our writing style. Our commitment remains making Southeast Asian politics relevant to youths, and we’ve found that the current writing style doesn’t resonate well with youths, as far as a personal-emotional level is concerned.
As we experiment with new changes, we hope that readers like yourself will continue to speak with us and guide us in the right direction. We’re also toying with the idea of AMAs and team livestreams, as well as other avenues for readers to speak directly to us.
In the meantime, please feel free to connect with us here, or on our Instagram and LinkedIn pages. We’re always hungry for feedback and ideas, and appreciate a ping at either tianwen.tay@seakoel.com or tanzhantiam@gmail.com. And if you’re based in Singapore, book a coffee chat with us sometime – first cuppa’s on us 😊
Yours truly,
Tian Wen
On behalf of Team SEAmplified