About Us
Who We Are
The Birthday Collective aims to be a “Brain, Heart and Hand Trust” for Singapore as it deals with an increasingly unpredictable and complex external environment, and increasingly acute domestic constraints. The external and internal challenges pose risks but also opportunities, if we remain optimistic and are creative in our approaches.
As a Trust, our projects focus on the gifts we can offer to future generations. True to their name, pure Brain trusts focus on ideas and analysis. The Collective's broader attempt to be a Heart and Hand trust, as well, stems from our conviction that ideas need to be acted on, to create a sense of national drive and belonging, even as individual aspirations are nurtured and lived out.
What We Do — The Birthday Suite
The Birthday Collective stewards a range of offerings that serve as gifts to our nation, from a diverse range of contributors. Collectively, these products are known as The Birthday Suite.
Our flagship projects are The Birthday Book and The Birthday Book, Jr., the latter, designed specially to give young voices a seat at the proverbial table.
We add to the above, audio and digital versions of previous editions and a thematic booklet series comprising essays either new or drawn from existing Birthday Books.
Our podcast series—Collectively Speaking—covers themes that cut across different essays in our books, and can be found on all major podcast broadcast platforms. In collaboration with the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), we also organise and host the Birthday Video competition, for those who prefer storytelling in more visual forms.
The Birthday Workbook is a free-to-subscribe resource that comprises thinking questions and learning activities based on essays from The Birthday Books. Sign up at bit.ly/TBBeduresource.
In the pipeline, we are launching our masterclass series called Collective Talents, where we assemble the best-in-class on topics like Facilitation, Ground-up Activism, Impact Investment and others.
The Birthday Excursions are thought-provoking, conversation-starting, people-connecting outings that we curate and plan—so that everyone in our community (and their communities!) continue to discover new perspectives and build Singapore’s brain, heart and hand trust.
The Birthday Fellowship aims to gather some of the most energetic change-makers and innovators, and support them in growing their ideas via access to our community’s collective expertise.
The Birthday UnConference gathers both our writers and their broader networks to discuss key issues for Singapore, using Open Space facilitation techniques to ensure a participant-driven agenda.
Pay-It-Forward
If you enjoyed the essays in our books and would like to share them with others, please consider being part of our Pay-It-Forward initiative where you can sponsor books towards educational, charity or non-profit organisations to use in their programmes. To participate or find out more, please visit https://thebirthdaycollective.org/products/the-birthday-book-are-we-there-yet-2021-volume.
=== The Birthday Collective ===
