A meeting place for ideas on sustainable development
THE Pangkor Dialogue has been successful in gathering ideas for sustainable and inclusive development, said Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir.
He said Ipoh, the capital of Perak, where the Pangkor Dialogue was held, was recognised as the first Social Business City in Asean, the second in Asia and fifth in the world, as acknowledged by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus last year.
Its name was coined by Muhammad, the founder of Grameen Bank, a social business that only repays investors their original investment, and reinvests 100 per cent of its profits into the business to solve social problems.
Perak, said Zambry, had also been recognised by Lonely Planet, the largest travel guide book publisher in the world, as among the top 10 “must visit” regions in the world for 2017, while Ipoh was ranked as among the top 10 destinations in Asia.
“Ipoh is now an emerging meeting place of great minds and a preferred hub for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE),” he said during his welcoming remarks at the opening of the dialogue.
Zambry underlined that the Pangkor Dialogue aimed to be the world’s preferred avenue in the field of sustainable development.
He also noted that the event, a collaboration with the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA), symbolised strategic relations and synergy between the federal and state governments.
NCIA is responsible for providing direction and for devising policies and strategies in relation to socioeconomic development in the Northern Corridor, which encompasses Kedah, Perak, Perlis, and Penang.
One of the speakers at the dialogue yesterday, former astronaut Dr Catherine Cady Coleman from the United States, said in her keynote address that findings in space explorations did not only lay the foundations for a manned mission to Mars, but would lead to more sustainable production back on Earth.
She said astronauts who undertook short-duration journeys or spent time at the International Space Station (ISS) were completely dependent on supplies of oxygen, water and food being sent up from Earth.
“The ability to grow crops in space is therefore a key component in making long distance space travel feasible, and is the reason why plant experiments have been carried out on board the ISS since 2006,” she said.
Such research, she said, had implications for agriculture back on Earth, as pressures on available land and water resources constantly increased, which necessitated maximising resources and minimising waste.
“In space, it’s a different way to look at the problem, and we try to be open-minded about solutions.
“When in a space station, it is very clear to the astronauts that if one of them doesn’t do the work, then it (work) won’t get done,” she said.
The veteran of two space shuttle missions also spoke on other unique challenges and dangers astronauts faced, including spacewalking, working in a floating environment and exercising to maintain bone mass.
Coleman, a retired colonel in the US Air Force, was born in Charleston, South Carolina in December, 1960.
She was the inspiration for the character played by actress Sandra Bullock in the 2013 sci-fi movie “Gravity”, and had been at NASA for 24 years. She spent 180 days in space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia and the ISS.
Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Air Force, she worked as a research chemist at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where she developed new materials for airplanes and optical coatings for pilots’ visors.
Selected as an astronaut in 1992, she served in a variety of roles within the Astronaut Office, including chief of robotics, lead for tile repair efforts after the Columbia accident and lead astronaut for integration of supply ships from NASA’s commercial partners, Space X and Orbital ATK.