Singapore Tops Hong Kong and Japan in Education and Startup Mobility

Singapore,
30 January 2018 – To commemorate its 10th year
anniversary, operator of the ‘.Asia’ regional top-level-domain, today released its
first annual ‘Youth
Mobility Index (YMI.Asia)’ report. YMI.Asia aims to measure the social, geo-physical
and digital mobility of younger generations across Asia to better
support young Asian entrepreneurs setting out to change the world.

Singapore, despite its small geographic size,
occupies a substantial position for being a vibrant cosmopolitan for tech
enterprises and investors. According to YMI.Asia findings, Singapore ranks #1
in Startup Mobility and in the Education sector in Asia. Its highly educated
workforce is proven favourable in nurturing startup talents. Singaporeans
also enjoy a high degree of travel freedom according to the annual
Henley Passport Index in which the country’s passport ranks
the world’s second most powerful.  This
is also reflected in YMI.Asia, which ranks Singapore as #1 in Inbound-Outbound
Student Force, ahead of Hong Kong.

“YMI.Asia rankings are built on our decade
long experience engaging millennials across Asia on Internet Governance issues
and designed to help aspiring young leaders kickstart their ideas for
Asia.  It is also my hope that YMI.Asia
could inspire further studies to support and inform policy development locally
and regionally to empower youth and enhance digital mobility across Asia,” said
Mr Edmon Chung, Chief Executive Officer, DotAsia Organisation.

According to the Global
Shapers Annual Survey 2017, the number one concern of youth in Asia is
employment. Job and skill obsolescence caused by the changing dynamics of the
knowledge economy can cause youth to feel insecure about their future. In response,
today’s young Asians are opting for mobility as a guard against personal
downturns. Youth mobility thus becomes a competitive advantage not only in
education and employment, but also in entrepreneurship for individuals. Mobility
offers a new sense of stability in today’s economy.

The findings show that YMI scores correlate
positively with GDP per capita, and other competitiveness and development
indices, indicating a solid framework for the methodology and interesting
points of study highlighted by discrepancies. The results of the YMI rankings
reaffirm the commanding lead by the four Asian Tigers – Hong Kong, Singapore,
Taiwan and Korea, along with Japan:

·
Singapore (#1) – Tops the
overall ranking with a combined highest score across the sub-categories. This
is supported by its competency in Education Mobility and an outstanding score
in English Proficiency.

·
Hong Kong (#2) – Singapore’s
strongest rival, comes in second, demonstrating strong dominance over
Entrepreneurship Mobility, with high scoring in total Torrent (i.e. combined
outbound and inbound students, migrant, travellers, goods and services).

·
Japan (#3) and Korea (#4)
follow subsequently; achieving the highest score in Employment Mobility and
overall Sustainability Factor respectively, and showing a high mobility advantage
over the traditional GDP per capita economic measure.

·
Taiwan (#5) – Secures the fifth
place beating Hong Kong as the most fun place for mobile youth in the Life
Experience (LifeX) sub-index within the YMI.

The YMI.Asia report included 2 subcomponents
designed specifically for youth with interesting results from Cost-Happiness
Performance and Life Experience Index (LifeX). Cost-Happiness Performance is a
measure of happiness over the cost of living at a locality, which is most
relevant for cash-strapped youth upstarts.

To download the
full report, please visit https://www.ymi.asia.

To download the
infographics, please visit https://ftp.asia/data/public/c718e6.

The DotAsia
Organisation is the Sponsoring Organisation and Registry Operator for the .Asia
Top-Level-Domain. .Asia is the official web address for the region and is open
to all businesses, individuals and organizations around the globe looking to
connect with Asia. .Asia domains have been registered in more than 150
countries to date. The DotAsia Organisation is a not-for-profit,
community-based organization headquartered in Hong Kong. Proceeds from every
.Asia domain registered supports Internet development and charitable works in
the region. DotAsia is committed to a vision of fostering a collaborative Asia.