Hyper Island first opened its doors to Asia in 2012. We love being here so we thought we’d put together 53 interesting things about this small but mighty
Home of Firsts and Bests
- Location of the first Asia campus for Hyper Island
- World’s only revolving restaurant on top of a flour mill (Prima)
- Singapore is home of the Merlion.
- Singapore is the home of the Trump / Kim summit. (Source)
- Are you a music lover? You’d be happy to know that Singapore is the home of the Sound Blaster Card.
- Singapore launched the world’s first autonomous taxis.
- The world’s first smart vibrator was invented in Singapore
- The World Toilet Organisation was founded in Singapore in 2001
- Singapore was host to the first ever Formula 1 Night Race held in the city.
- Singapore’s Changi Airport has been voted by air travelers as the world’s best at the 2018 World Airport Awards for the sixth consecutive year.
Singapore - City Garden
- Singapore is the most sustainable city ranked by Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index according to three facets of sustainability: social, environmental and economic. (Source)
- Almost 30 percent of the Singapore's urban areas are covered by greenery. This puts Singapore ahead of Sydney, Australia, and Vancouver, Canada, both of which are tied for second place with 25.9 percent. (Source)
- Jurong Island is actually a combination of 7 small islands. Pulau Seraya, Pulau Ayer Merbau, Pulau Sakra, Pulau Pesek Kecil, Pulau Pesek, Pulau Ayer Chawan and Pulau Merlimau.
- Zoo at night? Singapore has started the world’s first-night safari zoo!
- Singapore’s Bukit Timah Nature Reserve holds more species of trees than the entire North American continent. (Source)
- The first zoo in Singapore was Punggol Zoo.
- There is a hot spring in Singapore, located in Sembawang
- Singapore is home to the world’s largest orchid garden (Source)
Money talks
- Singapore's Temasek Holdings holds one of the world's largest sovereign fund. (Top 10 in the world)
- Singapore is the 3rd wealthiest country per capita after Qatar and Luxembourg. (Source)
- Singapore named the world's most expensive city to live in.
- Singapore was host to the world's largest FinTech Festival sponsored by MAS (Source)
- Singapore's 3 local banks are the top 3 safest banks in Asia (Source)
- Singapore is 4th amongst cities with the most millionaire CEO residents (Source)
- Singapore’s national anthem is printed in micro-text on the back of a $1000 note.
- Singapore has the highest paid government officials (Source)
All about Food
- Mcdonald has localized some of our favorite dishes to iconic burgers - Rendang Burger & Nasi Lemak Burger
- Singapore holds the record for making the longest
satay at 140m in length (Source) - Chilli Crab was first created in Singapore in 1950 (Source)
- Singapore holds the world record of the world’s largest serving of Fish Heads. (Source)
- If you love chewing gum, you’d be sad to know that it’s forbidden in Singapore
- Singapore ranks 4th in the cities with the most expensive pint of beer.
Culture
- Singapore has the fastest walkers in the world. According to a research by the British Council, Singaporeans have the fastest walking speeds. On average, we walk a distance of 18 meters in 10.55 seconds. That's approximately 6.15 km in an hour!
- Kiasu buyers - Majority of Singaporeans use the internet to compare and research products online, before making their purchases offline.
- Singlish (Singaporean English) includes words from English, Malay, Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi and more. You might hear: “lah”, “
lor ”, “leh ”, “meh”, “kena ”, “kiasu”, “liao ”, “makan ” and – instead of “yes” and “no” – “can” and “cannot”. - Bata Shoes (a Czechoslovakian brand) opened its first store in Singapore at the Capitol Building in 1931. (Source)
- Majority of Singaporeans watch online videos via their smartphone (Source)
Small but mighty
- NEWater plants supply up to 40% of Singapore's current water needs. This is crucial for a country that does hot have a lot of natural water supply.
- Singapore is the world’s safest city (Source)
- Singapore has the world’s most powerful passport.
- Singapore is a city, a capital and a state all at once, making it one of only three City States in the world.
- Singapore has increased its land space by 25% through land reclamation.
- 37,400 international companies have their Asia headquarters here (Source)
- You can cycle around Singapore in a day! The distance to cycle or run around Singapore is about 128km (Source)
- Singapore is the 3rd largest refined oil exporting country (although it has no oil of its own).
- Singapore is developing a round-island park connector that's 150km in length.
- Singapore is the busiest port in the world.
Technology
- Internet speed is amongst the fastest in the world (Source)
- Singaporeans spend an average time of 7h 09m per day on the internet via any device. Now that’s almost full-time job!
- Home to Grab, South East Asia’s billion-dollar alternative to Uber. They have invested US$100 million in a Singapore R&D center in 2015. Through data analysis, the center’s 200 engineers and data scientists hope to match ride supply to demand and improve the accuracy of waiting times across Southeast Asia.
- Singapore Airline’s KrisFlyer is the first in the world to launch a blockchain-based airline loyalty digital wallet.
- Google has based its engineering pool in Singapore to be closer to the growing Southeast Asian market. Its Next Billion Users division, also located in Singapore, works on bringing the internet to more people. Its projects include enabling Google Maps for offline use in places with limited mobile access.
- Singapore is testing new pedestrian crossings which are aimed at ensuring all pedestrians, in particular, those whose eyes are glued to their smartphones, cross the road safely.
Thank you for reading! At Hyper Island, we are constantly looking for trends, behaviors, and changes within various industries. This is to help us create real-world education for our students.
