Speech by SPS Dr Syed Harun at World Cities Summit (WCS) 2026 Young Leaders' Symposium

A very good morning to everyone.

It is indeed my pleasure to be here with you today on this beautiful Sunday morning with an exceptional group of young leaders, here at the Young Leaders' Symposium.

You have been chosen to represent your cities, your organisations as changemakers, which signals the belief by the people around you that you will be the ones who will shape the future of your countries as well as the world.

The World Cities Summit brings together city leaders, planners, thinkers from across the globe to wrestle with the most pressing urban questions of our time. This year's theme, Liveable and Sustainable Cities: ACT Now!, carries an urgency that we all feel. Not to 'plan now', not to 'study now', but really to take action and act now.

The Twin Shifts Reshaping Our Cities

Today's panel focuses on demographic and technological transitions. These two forces, as you are already well acquainted with, are simultaneously reshaping how our cities work, who lives in them, and what those residents need. Let me take a few minutes, really just to give a frame to both of these ideas.

Demographic Shift

The world's population is undergoing an unprecedented shift as life expectancies increase and birth rates fast declining, with families having fewer children and for some, none at all.

By 2050, and many of you might be acquainted with these numbers, the number of people aged 65 and above will double globally. Countries like France and the Nordic countries, long held up as exemplars of higher TFRs, continue to see declines in their birth rates, and more closely, the TFRs of our neighbours, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, are also trending downwards.

Singapore is not immune. Many of the young people, the young Singaporeans here, will know our resident fertility rate was at 0.87 in 2025, the lowest on record. This is an existential challenge for Singapore which we are most determined to address.

At the same time, Singapore's experience may be more comparable to other major metropolitan cities than to countries as a whole. The TFRs of major cities tend to be significantly lower than their national averages - Tokyo was 0.96 in 2024, Hong Kong was 0.84. This is a shared urban challenge, and not one unique to Singapore alone.

These demographic shifts have profound urban implications. As societies age, the demands on housing, healthcare, transport, on community infrastructure will change fundamentally. The compact, walkable, accessible city is no longer a design preference, but it becomes a necessity.

Technological Shift

At the same time, we are also confronted with technological shifts, artificial intelligence, robotics, automation are reshaping the very nature of our work. This is not a distant forecast; many of you here are probably well acquainted with AI. Some of you might have it in your phones, and the composition of jobs too are shifting. New categories of work are emerging at the intersection of human judgement and technological capability. The question then for you young leaders, is how to position yourselves, your families, your cities to harness this shift rather than be caught off guard by it.

Technology is a most powerful ally if we choose to use it wisely. AI can help cities predict infrastructure needs, improve service delivery, and stretch limited public resources further in service of our public. Smart city tools can also help ageing populations live independently for longer, and data can help us make our decisions better and more efficiently.

The question is not whether technology will transform our cities, for it will. The question is whether our institutions, our policies, and our people are ready to harness that transformation rather than be overtaken by it.

Near-Term Responses: What Cities Can Do Now

Responding to Demographic Transitions

In responding to demographic transitions, we can redesign housing and community infrastructure for an ageing population. This involves integrating healthcare facilities, social spaces, and accessibility features into urban planning from the start, and very early on. Cities should think of care infrastructure the way we think of transport infrastructure: that it is essential, that it needs to be planned, and that it needs to be publicly committed.

We should also develop clear frameworks to attract and integrate global talent, as part of a broader strategy to keep our cities dynamic and diverse. Now, immigration works best not as a substitute, but as a complement to our local population, and it should bring in people who contribute to the economy, integrate into our communities and over time, become part of the very fabric of our society. When this is done thoughtfully, newcomers and long-time residents can then build something stronger together.

Responding to Technological Transitions

On technological transitions, we should invest in continuous and accessible workforce reskilling. The answer to automation is not to resist it, but to ensure workers at all levels have the tools to move with it. This means rethinking how governments fund and deliver training: not as a one-time event at the start of a career, but as a lifelong support and base. In Singapore, SkillsFuture represents one such commitment and the model continues to evolve as the pace of change accelerates. In Singapore, SkillsFuture - our national lifelong learning movement - represents one such commitment. It provides citizens aged 25 and above with learning credits and access to subsidised training opportunities to upskill at different stages of their careers. The model then continues to evolve as technology changes, as skills changes, as the nature of work changes.

We must also deploy technology to extend public service capacity, especially in care and municipal services. As workforces shrink and populations age, technology can help cities do more with less - from predictive maintenance of infrastructure to AI-assisted triage of healthcare. But this must certainly be coupled with investment in the human workforce that oversees and deploys the tools. Technology augments; but certainly doesn't replace accountability.

Future-Proofing Our Cities: The Medium to Long Term

Looking further ahead, the cities that thrive will be those that treat demographic and technological change not as separate disruptions to manage, but as twin forces that can be addressed through coherent, integrated urban strategies and be harnessed from.

That means that when we plan our cities, we want the 70-year-old and the 17-year-old to both live with dignity, with purpose, and with a strong connection. It means designing institutions - our schools, our universities, our workplaces, our employment agencies - with a view to constantly adapt rather than periodically reform. And it means most importantly, cultivating the kind of trust between governments, employers, and industry, as well as citizens that make difficult transitions socially and politically sustainable.

And to you, the young leaders in this room. You will be the ones designing and implementing those strategies. You will be managing your cities, running the companies of the future, and building the communities that will navigate these transitions in the years, if not decades, to come. And that is why this Young Leaders' Symposium matters to us. Not just for the insights you will take away, but for the networks that you build, and the shared language of urban leadership that you will form and develop.

Closing

In closing, the cities that will succeed are not necessarily the largest, or the wealthiest, or the most technologically advanced. They will be the ones that will be led by people who are willing to be honest about the challenges of the day, who are creative and innovative about the responses that will follow, and certainly the ones who are most courageous to act now.

I welcome you to the Young Leaders' Symposium, and I look forward to the discussion and also learning from you today. So thank you so much for having me.