Where Have Our Dreams Gone?

3 years ago, the Prince and I were a core part of a team that created a small ripple of a revolution in technology funding.

It was exciting - we were given free hand to shape the national program, to recruit the best and most passionate of people and to go at the speed which would make the private sector proud.

We were the first technology fund in the country to build on the idea of industry linkages and to begin to walk the talk on building an innovation ecosystem, brick by brick.

We publicized the fund on radio (it was a cool ad!) and through other forms of media and for a moment, it captured the imagination of the industry. The team was great - passionate, dedicated and cohesive - well, at least most of them were.

Budding technology entrepreneurs were excited and encouraged by our speed, processes and unconventional methods in creating value for the entrepreneurs. The buzz and enthusiasm of entrepreneurs were inspiring.

It was meant to be much more than it is, right now - much, much more.


But as fate would have it, we never had the opportunity to take the program, to its original intent.

The vultures swooped in and took control of it and tried to destroy it, by changing the nature of the program. I departed in protest.

And it took over a year of active lobbying and campaigning from the outside to extract the "poison" out from the system - only to have another one in his wake, replacing him. The Company seems to have a tendency of breeding monsters from within - and like the stench of toxic waste site, it never seems to go away.

But I kept the faith - even as the people in the program were bullied and mistreated from the inside and the program dwindled to a mere shadow of what it used to be.

It's heartbreaking to see something that you helped create, diminish - but I consoled myself by thinking that for as long as we don't give up on the program and keep our faith - one day it will bounce back, to its former glory.

I've waited patiently for 2 years - and aside from the fact that the program is not dead - nothing else has happened. It seems to be dead, but no one has noticed.


***********************************

The Prince and I have disagreed, many, many times before. This is because in The NGO - I'm perhaps one of the few people who do not hesitate in disagreeing with him when I think he's wrong. Even if he is the President.

And perhaps - that's the reason he still values my opinion on things.

But our most recent disagreement left me, a little crestfallen.

From the tone of his voice and from the way he said things - it was clear to me and the others, that he wanted me to give up on my hope and crusade of saving the program.

We couldn't even agree on the cause of the downfall of the program - he seems to think that it arises from a lack of leadership at the top of the team - while I felt that problem was bigger than that - the program was suffering from a reluctant "parent" that was intent on committing infanticide.


Maybe after 2 years - he's just tired of my urging and ranting that as the NGO that created the fund - we have to observe the trust (amanah) given to us, to fulfill the fund's original objectives. Maybe he's thrown in the towel.

But in not so many words - that's what he implied to me. Give up on the program and let go.

It came as a shock to me - I never expected a co-founder that gave birth to the program to give up on it - especially not, The Prince. Many times in the past, he was the one that taught me never to give up.


I remember one SMS that he sent me before my voluntary retirement from the NGO, that I still keep till today - where he said:

"Well, as leaders, we don't have the luxury to give up,...whether we're busy or frustrated. We are all humans and we've all got our own frustrations.

But we are not showing a good example if we give up.

A lot of people are relying on us, brother. We are not talking about you and me, but a lot of others who have a dream and who see us as hope for a new change".


Where is the great man that sent me this SMS?

*******************************************

Even though I felt guilty about retiring from the NGO, but I was "burnt out" - 4 whole years of national service had taken its toll on me and I had seen a lot more of the Malaysian system of Government, than I would care to discover.

I used to believe that the Government was ill-informed and that with better data from the people on the ground - policymaking and implementation would be much improved.

I found out that they're not uninformed about the situation - but just simply unmoved by facts and situations - and this is true of the highest levels (up from the PM's Office and the upper echelons of Bank Negara) to the lowest levels. Inertia seems to be the key word here - almost everyone is afraid of sticking their necks out, on important issues.

What is the point of whistle-blowing on corruption and abuse of power in Government and GLCs - if the powers-that-be simply turn a deaf ear?

***************************************


But back to The Prince. Yes - I think he implied that I should give up on the program that we built up together. As if all hope is lost.

Perhaps, he thinks that reviving it to its former state, has become an impossibility. Maybe he's tired of battling bureaucrats and would like to deal with things that are not so difficult "to move".

And who can blame him? - Malaysia's a political and bureaucratic nightmare - things usually cannot be fixed or corrected. It seems that the only way to avert disasters, is to not make a mistake and let things go to ruin, in the first place.

I don't know, it's unfair for me to speculate on what The Prince felt - but I felt that the signal was clear. And I think so did the others at that meeting too. I saw their hesitance in arguing with The Prince on this issue, even when I could see it in their eyes, that they agreed with me.

I think I'm now alone on this issue. It only took 2 years - and it seems that everyone else has stopped believing in the program. Everyone except this solitary dog, that's barking away alone.

Maybe the word impossible has crept into their dictionary. Words which did not exist in 2003, when we raised RM100 million together, from the Government - when no one thought we would have succceeded in doing so.

But hell, we showed them - and more. Life seems to be much simpler when the odds are impossibly stacked against you - how ironic.

Up to this day, in its 6 years of existence, the program is still the NGO's most significant achievement and tangible contribution to our industry - but many seem to have forgotten this.


Imitation is the best form of flattery, they say - and after our program, 2 other government funding programs has been modelled along the same lines, as the program. People liked what we did - they believed in it.

And I hope for the industry's sake, I hope that the imitations will be better than what the original has become - and maybe, even better than what the original was intended to be. One can dream, right?

But today, I'm afraid that I may be the sole custodian left, of our collective dreams of yesterday.

It's true what Dr Martin Luther King said: "At the end of the day, it is not the roar of our enemies that we fear, it is the silence of our friends".

And if I might add to Dr King's wise words - "and the courage lost, from the abandonment of our collective dreams"