22nd March (1st day)
For me, the main attraction on that day was a talk by Matthias Gelber, the World’s Greenest Man. He’s a German and has been actively involved in activities that promotes greener lifestyles and educates the public on the importance of acting now to save Mother Nature. There’s just something about the way he talk (or maybe his accent) that really attract your attention and makes you want to listen to his every words. He has the charisma, his presentation skills are great, and every word that comes out from his mouth sounds truly important. Seriously. He can just simply point at a shit and said, “This shit stinks” and your only reaction is “Wow, how come I didn’t notice it before?? This guy is a genius!” (over exaggerate here )
Matthias Gelber
He begin his introduction by saying that when you ask most people why do they decided to go green and they will most probably answer that they want to save Mother Nature, save the Earth, etc. But the actual fact is that we want to save HUMANKIND. That’s the real purpose, so that the coming generations can live comfortably on Earth in the near future. He also said that green efforts should always start from your lifestyle. You don’t just simply plant some new trees in the garden and go back home, take a long hot bath, switch on every air-con in the house, and watch tv the whole day and claimed that you had helped saving the Earth. There were more in his speech but I’m lazy to type everything here.
He also gives out some free t-shirt, if you can answer his questions. At first, he asked a civil engineering related question: “Why does cement contribute to high amount of CO2 emission?”. I had totally no idea or solution to that question. Heck, I even forgot what cement is made up from. A close friend of mine keep on nudging me, “Come on, you should know this. Go, go, answer it.”. To protect my dignity, I acted as if I purposely giving other people the chance to win something in their life. (the answer: the presence of calcium carbonate).
Few minutes later, he showed us a picture of him, sitting behind a woman on a bike. He asked us, who know the woman’s name in the picture.
Can you guess who is she?
Since nobody answer, I quickly said “Deborah Henry”. And tadaa! I got it right and won a free t-shirt. Ahh…. The awkward moment when you win something because you guessed a woman’s identity correctly but not the question that is related to your course.
23rd March (2nd day)
The competition was held at 2pm and you are supposed to propose your green idea. I thought Matthias will be one of the judges but sadly, no. I gotta admit that this competition is the most low profile competition I had ever went to. All contestants immediately become the finalists without going through selection process and the most of the audience members are the contestants themselves, the helpers of the event and a small amount of supporters. I went there to show some supports to 3 of my friends who joined this contest.
Some may said that I may be biased but I honestly believe that Ting San deserved the first place. Majority of the contestants only concentrate on 1 method/solution but she was the only one who combine many aspects and methods into 1 practical solution. Her ideas are unique; she explained the use of fibre optic, the application of mirror to spread out the light, the tagging system, double façade wall, etc while others just talk about wind technology, solar energy technology and all the things that you have read before in standard 6 science textbook. She even went through the trouble to draw out her designed building using the Autocad software. In the end, she got third place, but I’m still happy for her. At least she won something from this quiet competition.
Yeon Ciat's Space 