Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

is the Executive Director of Penang Institute. His recent books include The Eurasian Core and its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (ISEAS 2016).

310 posts

Penang Institute as NGO: Growing Beyond Research and Advocacy

3 min read

THE THEME FOR June 2024 is non-government organisations—NGOs. This allows for the publisher of this monthly, i.e. Penang Institute itself, to do some soul-searc...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The Creative Industries Require More Organic Solidarity and Less Mechanical Solidarity

3 min read

IF YOU WISH to enhance material production, be this of electronic chips, fish and chips, or arts and crafts, the contemporary wisdom today is to aim for the est...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Weathering Climate Change—A Battle Fatal to Lose

3 min read

I REMEMBER STRUGGLING with the terms “weather” and “climate” in primary school.And as with most related words, it was about knowing when to use one and not the...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Pursuing the Meaning of Equality and Liberty (With Some AI Assistance)

4 min read

WHETHER WE LIKE to think so or not, modern political thought gained effective sloganic expression during the French Revolution (in 1789), incidentally around th...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Taking Physical Space or Making Cultural Space? Multicultural Peace Depends on Which We Prefer

4 min read

SPACE: The final frontier… Good slogan. Classic. Melodramatic, evocative. And totally anthropocentric; to be sure, Space is after all 100% of the Universe, minu...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Penang Institute Pushes for Economic Ecosystems Development

4 min read

SINCE THE THEME for January 2024 is Penang’s Economic Development, it seems appropriate that I present in somewhat truncated form the document produced in March...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Fight for Your Man Caves and Your Comfort Foods

3 min read

You have your favourite places—rooms where you feel safe, where you can let go. These are your retreats, your reset zones. Equally vital are the comfort foods that soothe your soul. In a crowded, overstimulated world, such sanctuaries—physical and emotional—are more essential than ever.

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

AI—Boon or Bane, Intelligent or Illusory?

3 min read

These are the days of miracle and wonder. Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry. Don’t cry. — Paul Simon, “The Boy in the Bubble”, 1986.

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

A Speech On Unity Written For Anwar Ibrahim

5 min read

by Dato Dr. Ooi Kee Beng & ChatGPT

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Raising The FLAG To Make Leadership A Common Concern

4 min read

PENANG INSTITUTE is in the process of launching its Forum for Leadership And Governance (FLAG) Project. The venue for its series of initiatives will be the newl...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Urban Mobility and The Sense of Common Purpose

4 min read

MODERN ECONOMICS and modern living are paradoxically based on sustained advances in means of mobility, on the one hand, and in the human ability to live in huge...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Excelling Every Day Is Easier Than You Think

4 min read

ANYONE WHO HAS achieved something they are proud of, when revisiting the memory of it later in life, tends to feel a warm and tingling sensation of “Wow, did I...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng