Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Hello, this is Ron Kaufman and I’m standing inside one of the great new wonders of the airport world. Jewel – at Changi Airport in Singapore. What you are seeing here is just one view inside this jewel. A  cascade of water that pours from the roof down 40 meters to the basement below creating the world’s largest indoor waterfall. This is a delightful space for people to enjoy the water, the gardens, the shopping, the food and the joy of just being together.

This new space for the world to gather at Changi Airport was built outside the transit area, which means that travellers can enjoy being here before their flights, after their flights and between their flights if they have enough time. But it also means the jewel was created for the community in which this airport exists. The city and the country of Singapore. And  that is a big change in thinking about what an airport can be in the world. Not only a place for coming and going. But a place for people from the local area and the rest of the world can be together, to eat, shop, laugh, play, see and be seen and to engage with life and with each other.

This is a space that celebrates diversity and welcomes inclusion from all over the world. It’s a meeting place for our global community. A  place for the celebration of who we are and how we are when we come together. It’s kind of change- this kind of construction. It takes vision and commitment and a lot of resources. But it also takes a willingness to relook at our usual way of doing things. To ask if there could be a new way of thinking, a new way of being that is better suited to create the value that we want in the world today and even more value for our world tomorrow.

Now this kind of thinking, new thinking is showing up in all of our lives. For example, the idea of owning less and sharing more, using public transport and ride-sharing instead of owning and driving your very own car. Giving up plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic straws which may be a little less convenient but also is less of a drag on the ecology of our planet. Or reducing the number of animals that we raise to eat, lightening a load of our food on the earth and lightening the load on our bodies or reconsidering the very idea. The success today isn’t divide-and-conquer, winner-takes-all or may the best man win. Talk about going obsolete. We need new ways of being, that bring people together so that everyone wins a better life with appreciation and respect. With housing and health care and education truly available for us all. Now you may just say I’m fanciful or imagining a future that could never be achieved. But  I’m standing on what was just a parking lot four years ago.

Today, well it’s a sparkling centrepiece for the best airport in the world. A  real masterpiece of thinking, imagination and design and you know what? You can do this too. You can do this in your work, in your family and your community and in the way you think about and live your life.  Making  good choices to make your world a little bit more open, more diverse, more expanded, more connected, more caring, more committed and perhaps more humane. Whether you live in Chile or China, in Bangalore, Barcelona or Brazil, the way we choose to live our lives shape the society and the future that all of us will share. I’m speaking to you today with a view towards tomorrow, towards a future that you and I and every one of us is making and shaping together. I’m in Singapore at the Jewel Changi Airport. Come visit, bring your family, bring your friends, bring your appetite and your ideas for a beautiful, sustainable and even more valuable future.