HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
HOW A WORK MEETING LED TO A POWER COUPLING.
Six-year-old Zubin, holding a pair of wire-cutting pliers, races across the hallway towards the 3-D printer. His sister, Zara, who’s eight, tinkers with the computer. While Singapore has been transforming itself into an innovation hub to experiment with the latest technologies and develop systems, the Khannas have built a living lab right in their terraced house in the east of the island.
Ayesha says: “We spend quite a lot on all the new gadgets that come out, like Google Home, Jibo and a 3-D printer.” Their usage by the children, however, is carefully managed.
“It is about their relationship with technology. They must see it as something that can help them achieve what they imagine. The phone, in a way, is a colleague, as opposed to being just a tool or monitor. We want to move from passive reception to active interaction.” Zubin is combining his love for soccer and juice by building a robot that gives drinks to parched players, while Zara is developing a chatbot based on her travels.
And active interaction with the world has certainly defined the Khannas’ lives. They have just returned from a five-month stint in Berlin, where Parag, 40, was undertaking research as a Richard von Weizsacker fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy. The kids (right) took a leave of absence from school. Says Ayesha: “Travel and living in other cities is a big part of how we want to educate our children. Technology is important but so is culture.”
As a family, they have visited over 40 countries and Parag alone has travelled and worked in more than 100 countries. Parag, who was a foreign policy adviser in
former US president Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign and senior geopolitical adviser to the United States Special Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, says: “My previous life was me and my backpack. Now we have car seats and nannies. At each phase, we’re always figuring out how to make the next step work.”
The couple met when a mutual friend suggested that Ayesha feature Parag in her online magazine Ego. He recalls: “She is a living version of all those pseudonyms she was writing under. She would take me to African dance class one day and we would watch a film noir the next. At the same time, she worked on Wall Street. Once people become professionals, they don’t have interesting mental lives. Ayesha’s very vibrant. That’s sexy.”
The attraction remains fierce, even after more than a decade. “There’s been a complementarity from day one,” he adds. “I know politics and she knows technology. I was writing essays about cities being the new authorities of the world, and she was researching smart cities at the same time. There was something that ought to converge.” The result was their 2012 book, Hybrid
Reality, in which they explored the co-evolution of humans, technology and geopolitics. Former Washington Post publisher Christopher Schroeder described the Khannas: “It would be hard to find two people better equipped to prepare us for these changes (in the information age).” The couple also set up the Hybrid Reality Institute, a think-tank that explores the social impact of technological trends.
Between back-to-back travel schedules, managing companies, consulting, giving talks and writing, they have little time left for anything but their children. Weekends are sacred, and the family always have breakfasts and dinners together.
“You have to make choices as a working woman,” Ayesha says. “There are a limited number of hours in a day and it’s rubbish to think that you can have it all; something’s got to give. You don’t see me at parties because I work and I spend time with my kids.
“Every day you feel slightly guilty about something and that’s okay. The social rat race is hard to keep up.” Parag chimes in: “Social events used to be important. Now I really hope there’s nothing to do tonight.”