Prof Mahbubani to inaugurate Eminent Speaker Series at Miloda
The internationally acclaimed expert on Asian and world affairs,
Prof. Kishore Mahbubani is to inaugurate the Eminent Speaker Series at
Miloda Academy of Financial Studies, the training centre of the Finance
and Planning Ministry. A Memorandum of Understanding will also be signed
between the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National
University of Singapore and the Finance and Planning Ministry, Sri
Lanka, to strengthen mutual cooperation on capacity development.
Prof. Mahbubani is Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public
Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National
University of Singapore. Previously he served for over three decades in
the Singapore diplomatic service including as Singapore’s Ambassador to
the UN. He also served as President of the UN Security Council in
January 2001 and in May 2002.
In addition to his career in the diplomatic services, Prof. Mahbubani
has also spoken and published globally. His articles have appeared in
Foreign Affairs magazine, the Washington Quarterly, Time, Newsweek, the
Financial Times and the New York Times. He has also been profiled in the
Economist and Time magazine.
Listed as a top global thinker in various journals, in his latest
book “The Great Convergence,” Prof. Mahbubani argues that with the rise
of a new Asian middle class, the world is rapidly approaching an
unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and
values; “in other words, a genuinely global civilisation.”
Some of the influential books Professor Mahbubani has authored
include “Can Asians Think?” (published and translated in Singapore,
Canada, US, Mexico, India, China, Myanmar, Turkey and Malaysia), “Beyond
the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World”
(published and translated in the US and China) and “The New Asian
Hemisphere: the irresistible shift of global power to the East”
(published and translated in the US, France, Germany, The Netherlands,
Egypt, China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, Taiwan and Vietnam).
In recognition of Prof. Mahbubani’s achievements and contribution to
society, the Singapore Government conferred him The Public
Administration Medal (Gold) in 1988. He was also listed as one of the
top 100 public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy and Prospect
magazines in 2005 and included in the March 2009 Financial Times list of
Top 50 individuals who would shape the debate on the future of
capitalism - a list that included US President Obama, Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao and former French President Sarkozy. Most recently Professor
Mahbubani was selected as Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers in 2010
and 2011. And in 2011 he was also described as ‘the muse of the Asian
century.”
Prof. Mahbubani’s lecture at Miloda Academy of Financial Studies is
scheduled for the 15th of May at 4 p.m and is titled “Sri Lanka’s
potential in the new Asian hemisphere.”
Miloda, Academy of Financial Studies, which is a state-of-the-art
training facility, was established to improve the quality of the human
resources of the Finance Ministry, the revenue collecting and other key
agencies of the Sri Lanka, to upgrade the quality of public sector
employees who are in the forefront of policy formulation and execution.
The Academy is expected to energize the knowledge building process as a
regional hub that imparts knowledge to ministries of finance in the
region, as a member of a network of learning centers of international
repute in the region. Discussions are under way to firm up support from
multilateral and bilateral agencies and academic institutions of repute
towards developing a network in knowledge dissemination. The Eminent
Speaker series will serve as a platform for knowledge sharing from
experts around the world.
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