MUN Impact’s growth and consolidation in 2020 is due, in no small part, to the phenomenal success of MUN@Home, an online asynchronous platform that teaches students about the UN Sustainable Development Goals while also helping foster connections and change-making networks the world over. Central to the growth of this important branch of MUN Impact is Jaideep Singh, its Secretary-General, who is a passionate public speaker, gifted moderator, and first-year chemical engineering student in Singapore. In this Part 2 of 2, he speaks about how MUN has shaped him as an individual, and how his chosen major and career path might intersect with his passion for this movement. The ways in which MUN affects the MUNer may be unique to each one, but the degree to which that influence shapes who they are is often tremendous, and with Jaideep, it is no different.
MUN Impact’s growth and consolidation in 2020 is due, in no small part, to the phenomenal success of MUN@Home, an online asynchronous platform that teaches students about the UN Sustainable Development Goals while also helping foster connections and change-making networks the world over. Central to the growth of this important branch of MUN Impact is Jaideep Singh, its Secretary-General, who is a passionate public speaker, gifted moderator, and first-year chemical engineering student in Singapore. In this Part 2 of 2, he speaks about how MUN has shaped him as an individual, and how his chosen major and career path might intersect with his passion for this movement. The ways in which MUN affects the MUNer may be unique to each one, but the degree to which that influence shapes who they are is often tremendous, and with Jaideep, it is no different.
Podcast Name: ComMUNiqué
Podcast Producer: MUN Impact
Episode Title: The Brain Leading MUN@Home - Part 2 of 2 (His Life and Growth)
Episode Number: 7
Host: Erik Novak
Guest: Jaideep Singh
Date Published: October 2nd, 2020
Episode Description: MUN Impact’s growth and consolidation in 2020 is due, in no small part, to the phenomenal success of MUN@Home, an online asynchronous platform that teaches students about the UN Sustainable Development Goals while also helping foster connections and changemaking networks the world over. Central to the growth of this important branch of MUN@Home is Jaideep Singh, its Secretary General, who is a passionate public speaker, gifted moderator, and first-year chemical engineering student in Singapore. In this Part 2 of 2, he speaks about how MUN has shaped him as an individual, and how his chosen major and career path might intersect with his passion for this movement. The ways in which MUN affect the MUNer may be unique to each one, but the degree to which that influence shapes who they are is often tremendous, and with Jaideep it is no different.
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Erik Novak: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the world's premier podcast at the intersection of education, social engagement and the work of the United Nations proper. If you enjoy our work, don't forget to like, share, follow, subscribe, and show our work to your friends and colleagues. I am your host, Erik Novak, and this is ComMUNiqué. We continue our conversation with Jaideep Singh, started in the previous episode of ComMUNiqué. Jaideep, is as I, you mentioned a 19 year old student at NTU Singapore, currently studying chemical engineering. He serves as the secretary general of the MUN@Home program, which is of course, one of the largest, most active branches of MUN Impact and whose details we went over in the last episode. Ever since attending THIMUN Qatar, where he met MUN Impact executive director, Lisa Simpson, Jaideep has worked closely with her. And today we will discuss some of his other work with MUN impact, besides the immensely impactful work he has done with MUN@Home and the blog posts that he previously wrote. In particular, I'd like to talk about your work with the Global Summit, that MUN Impact hosted a few weeks back and generally at a, at a macroscopic level, what you did there. So thanks for being here today Jaideep, and I'm excited to continue our conversation. If you could elaborate a little more then on your work with the Global Summit, I think this would be a great point for us to start.
Jaideep Singh: [00:01:50] Thank you, Erik, and a very warm welcome to our listeners, once again. Thank you for joining into the second episode with this podcast between Erik and myself. so Erik has asked about my role at the Global Summit in July, and that was the first Global Summit by MUN Impact, and it was perfectly timed because yet again, But we had in the midst of the pandemic. And again, this is a very good way of having a virtual, it was a very good time to have a virtual leadership summit for delegates to learn about leadership qualities, about various aspects, about SDGs, about MUN, et cetera, right in the comfort of their homes. At the Global Summit, my job primarily was, that have a master of ceremonies. So in essence, in my work at MUN@Home, we had our sessional speakers and I've had the privilege of, you know, running their sessional talks with our MUN@Home delegates and, from there, you know, I became this very popular guy amongst the MUN Impact universe as an excellent master of ceremonies when it comes to moderating discussions with especially high profile United Nations speakers. And, as a result of that, Lisa, who is our executive director, told me to, even requested me to actually MC a lot of these sessions and I happily agreed because this is something I love doing. I was involved in mcing these sessions. So especially the sessions with United Nations officials, so United nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and I'm already talked about the real UN and Brendan Varma. They were there again as well, and I was called upon to NC this session as well, absolutely brilliant. I also had the honor of mcing and all of the sessions by, several top-gear United Nations officials. Some of them are from the UNODC. Others were from, other United Nations Departments, even from the UNEP, the United nations environment program, from where we had Dr. Charles McNeil, who was an amazing speaker with regards to the biodiversity. So that's something I really enjoy, not only mcing, but also listening to, In essence, I was responsible for regulating the questions coming in. So as to make sure that program went smoothly. And what I generally follow is that I tell delegates to type in the questions in the chat box. And once the talk is completed, we go into a Q&A and a segment and I call upon them to switch on their microphones and their cameras to have a sort of actual interaction with the speaker. Even the speaker enjoys this, even delegates enjoy, and they ask a question and they get a response. And in this way you actually feel that even though you're not together, at least you are able to talk to each other face to face. And that's what I essentially facilitated. I also helped out at the help desk, the summit. So there was a 24/7 helpdesk, 24 hours where we, we addressed any concerns any of our delegates had with regards to technical issues or what we did at MUN Impact in general, so our programs. So I was there to help out along with a lot of other colleagues at MUN Impact, we stayed up all night to do stuff. We had our fun moments, but it was indeed tiring yet an interesting experience. The summit, and not just my role as an MC, but the summit in general gave me a very good insight on a lot of topics. I, myself, wasn't very clear on and some of these include, leadership qualities in, in, in, in, in things like environmental studies and criminal law, and we had some, even some sessions, student leaders who talked about their perspective on a stereotyping or their perspective on any stills they have, like my colleague Mostafa was also there USG at MUN@Home for strategic mentorship. He had a session on how we could begin our own entrepreneurial ventures. And even though, unfortunately I couldn't attend that because I was at another session. It was another very good insight. And the delegates at the end of the session, used to have the socialized at the end of the day. And I was a part of facilitating those as well and absolutely amazing social hours where they get to talk to each other informally, try to get to know each other from different corners of the world. So in essence, I feel that summit to me was an experience of not just meeting with very high profile individuals and getting to have the honor of facilitating and moderating the discussions and learning from them.
But rather, also seeing these beautiful young minds come together, talk to each other, connect with each other, all in the background of the SDGs and a brilliantly executed summit online. So that was what my role at the summit was. And that's essentially what I did and what I learned from the summit in those beautiful three days.
Erik Novak: [00:06:36] I have to say Jaideep from our very brief interactions in the podcast thus far, it's pretty obvious that you're a gifted public speaker, very charismatic and motivational. And this is one of the most important qualities for an MC, which obviously who needs to engage the audience, make sure that they're all tuned in and paying attention and who's able to moderate the panelists, the speakers, the discussions, and such. So I think this must have been both obviously a great experience for you, but also a fantastic choice by MUN Impact's part to pick you as the MC for these events, because again, I think your quality speak for themselves when you speak. So there's a bit of that. You mentioned that you learned quite a bit throughout the summit and developed as an individual, despite being one of the organizers, not just the participants. Could you elaborate a little more on perhaps the one or the one or two main things that you most internalized and the, you most brought to heart as you engaged with the summit?
Jaideep Singh: [00:07:47] So I'd like to, speak about one speaker who who's Jordan Hattar and, he talked about his-
Erik Novak: [00:07:58] Oh, could you, could you spell it out so that our listener, if they're interested, could search the speaker online.
Jaideep Singh: [00:08:05] Oh, yeah. So it's J O R D A N, Jordan, Hatter, H A T T A R. And he's someone who's been working in Syria, with a lot of young, trying to get them good food, trying to get them rehabilitation and trying to get them good education.
And I had the honor of again mcing this session as well. Jordan, what's. In Syria and he works and rehabilitation in these disturbed areas. But one thing he taught us through his session was not about his work per se. It was not based on what he did, but rather the experiences he learned while doing all of this. And one example he gave in his life story was how he applied to the white house as an intern seven times. As if I'm not wrong, I think he applied seven times and he got rejected seven times and he applied the eighth time and finally he was accepted. He worked as an intern under Michelle Obama. So in essence, that was just one of the many experiences he had in life. This was something small, but working in Syria, looking at those children with the real hope they are under drastic circumstances. They work, they live in circumstances we cannot imagine if we just live in a room with an AC, but he has the ground working with those folks. Trying his best. And he could have worked at foreign diplomacy. He could have worked and he's a journalist, so he could have worked in an AC room as a reporter, but he worked at the ground. He reported things at the ground and he even pursued the secretary general of the UN. Then secretary general of the UN, Ban-Ki Moon.
Wherever he went, whether it be the Arctic, whether it be New York, he followed him, to tell him to talk about Syria. And he was one of those people who actually got into the center stage, the issue of Syria, the refugee crisis and how that is something the world must be looking at. And this is in a way, very, very inspiring. This is just one of the countless stories of people who came at the summit, talked about how they tried their best to bring things into notice of global, global leaders of the global stage of the United Nations. And this is how these things are coming to center stage. Jordan may not be the only one doing this. Lots of people have done it, but people like him with those charismatic ideologies are the ones have played a pivotal role in bringing it to center stage. These were one of the, he was one of the countless people who did the work of inspiring our delegates and his session was one of the best sessions I have seen in a very long time.
And in essence, This is a good example of how I just went there as an MC to facilitate questions and moderate them. But I ended up learning some very valuable life skills, which I can implement in my life, in a lot of, in a lot of ways, whether I'm working in diplomacy or I'm working and the science and tech industry, because I, myself, I'm a science, an engineering major, these values of helping society, those who need it, it's, it works in any profession, every profession. And these are some things which inspire us all regardless of where we come from. And. As I said is one of the very few examples of how you just need the dedication. You just need the passion and you just need the thought process of helping others, of bringing things to notice and making sure that the world is a better place and small efforts are what makes a large impact.
And that's what we learned from the summit from one of the few brilliant workshops at the summit and that's why I urge all delegates that you should always attend such summits, not just by MUN Impact, but people all around you by conferences all around you. But MUN Impact is one of those brilliant places where you get to experience such first-hand folks who have done brilliant jobs and really have inspired the work they did.
Erik Novak: [00:12:20] I did not have the opportunity to attend the Jordan Hatter panel, but I definitely feel like checking it out later and to all the listeners out there, it's important to note that most panels from the first Global Summit in the MUN Impact YouTube. So it's very easy to see the discussions and what followed from them. So just a simple YouTube search. And I feel like the moment we finish this podcast is just might be the thing I'll do.
At a personal level, I feel like the session I attended that I most liked might just have been the same out in keynote, but then again, I am a tech fan boy, so I am a little biased in that way. But, yeah, I guess as, as an engineer yourself, you probably empathize a bit with this. I'm actually currently doing electrical engineering and math. So I'm in a similar boat. And I actually wanted to ask you a question about that shortly, but for now, I wanted to briefly mention to the listener again, that, MUN Impact intends to host a summit 2.0. That not meant to be exactly a continuation. Sorry, a sequel of the first summit and more so a continuation focusing a lot more or on the application and the implementation aspect of the ideas discussed in the first summit hosting, for example, I believe it's called the Adobe think tank, which is similar to shark tank. different people can pitch their ideas to a, a team of highly accomplished, UN individuals in a panel. And that idea will be given insight and suggestions about how to implement them about how it's implemented. And there will be other branches to that Global Summit as well. So to the extent that it will have similar programming to the summit that we hosted in July. It's also going to extend that programming and different unique, and certainly I think very impactful directions. So I'm curios to see how effective, and I think it's going to be very, but how effective the summit we host in October has the potential of being, what's your engagement with that summit Jaideep? Cause I heard you're no longer with the MC.
Jaideep Singh: [00:14:48] So, as of now, I'm not too sure because I've not been very hands on involved in 2.0. Because I think Erik will relate very well to this, uni has started and-
Erik Novak: [00:15:00] Oh boy, I relate too well, too well.
Jaideep Singh: [00:15:04] So I've not been too hands on involved, though I will, I will probably be attending it. And, you never know at last moment I'll be called upon to MC that as well. So, so yeah, if, if, if I am called upon to do so, I'm going to be happy to do it. but as of now, I'm not so involved directly in the planning like I was last time. Cause obviously I've had some academic commitments, but yes, as you said, it's a very unique idea because generally summits are all about workshops and that's what the Global Summit, the first one in July was like. But this one is a bit more discussion oriented, idea oriented. And, you know, I like the pun, impact oriented and that's what we are working on. And, and, we have, Hugh who's the SG along with Anya, and those are two brilliant student leaders. And I'm sure they're going to do a brilliant job, but if I am called upon to MC I'd love to do that job because I love that job.
Erik Novak: [00:16:04] Yeah, well, I'm honestly, I can definitely empathize liking mc I'm sure the listener can keep a secret, but one of the reasons why I decided to start the podcast was as an excuse to mc something. So I absolutely love mcing. When I was in ninth grade in school, apparently I was counted out. and so I was the mc of my high school talent show.
I think this was the first time I realized I actually like to mc stuff. So since then, I've mc'ed quite a few different events and, and it's, it's truly fantastic experience, not just at a personal more, egocentric level, but also too, that you help the organization and engage the population, I just really like the feeling and the opportunities that it gives as well as the, the skills that it honed.
So I totally empathize Jaideep. I really do but let's see how this goes. Yeah, no, I totally understand the university thing. Honestly, the amount of work that I've wanted to do for MUN Impact versus the amount of work that I was actually able to do has, has changed quite a bit over the last three weeks versus what I was doing in June, July. And so it's, it's just a shame that we only have 24 hours in the day, I guess. But it is what it is. I wanted to briefly ask you at a personal level, because obviously as an engineer in the making myself, I, I do MUN for, for a variety of reasons, but they're not explicitly related to, to my academic career thus far and the same applies to you. So I wanted to ask you how exactly, why exactly you chose to engage in MUN and MUN like activities, despite your plans to become an engineer. And I think it's important to have this conversation because a lot of people out there that tend to monolithically understand at a very superficial level, what Indiana is about might think that it's only meant for those who want to study international relations, but the amount of the difference in interest in the people that I've seen doing the activity has always been amazing.
Jaideep Singh: [00:18:21] I think it's always a good thing to have these people mentioned why they do the activity. Yeah. And that's a, that's a very good question Erik indeed, because, It's it's true in a way that a lot of people who do MUN do end up doing law, international relations, but something we need to understand is that when we do MUN, at least in my perception, when we do MUN, we do not just learn about diplomacy, consensus building, debate, et cetera. It helps us think critically and it helps us look at the world as a single place. It's it's, it's a connected world. It lets us look at different people, different cultures, different communities.
So in a way, first of all, it helps us become a better global citizen. That's the first skill we developed doing MUN because you look at countries as different cultures, different communities, with different backgrounds, different, basically everything is different. And that diversity is what we need to appreciate as good global citizens. And it's an important skill to develop with any career you take up. Whether you are a lawyer, whether you are a diplomat or whether you're an engineer or whether you're a chemist, it doesn't matter. The second thing is that MUN helps you develop confidence and personality at a more, the skill level. It's imperative yet again in today's world that if you're an engineer, You need to be able to communicate your ideas. If you're a scientist, you need to communicate your ideas. Even if you are a chef, you need to talk about your recipe to somebody. You need to talk to your manager, you need to talk to representing your kitchen and your own restaurant. You need to be able to represent yourself. In essence, communication is literally everywhere is what I want to try to say with that very poor example. Another thing which, which I. What we emphasize on this particular emphasis to my major, which is chemical engineering or engineering, is that there has been a long, in my opinion, a very long long term perception that because, MUN, it's foreign relations related, engineers and scientists have nothing to do with it, or in general, because UN is foreign relations related, we don't have anything to do with it. That's absolutely incorrect. The reason being, today, we need to have more scientists, engineers, and more people in R and D in the tech industry involved in these diplomatic discussions. And this is because the sustainable technologies is one of the SDGs targets as SDG 17.7 target, which is sustainable technologies, the sharing of sustainable technologies through developing countries. And today, if you take up other SDGs, let's take up. A SDG 6.6, which is what we are debating at the moment, which is restoration of water related ecosystems. We need ecologists. We need Marine biologists to come up and talk about this. If you take up the case of life on land, which is an SDG again, we need again, ecologists and biologists to come up. If you're talking about, sustainable technologies, let me go back to that, we need chemists to talk about green chemistry. We need physicists to talk about better mechanical processes with mechanical engineers. We need better energy production for which, and cleaner energy, cleaner fuel to make methanol from carbon dioxide captured carbon dioxide. That's what a chemical engineer would do. So as to reduce the carbon. Vintage to make a cyclic carbon economy, which is again, imperative to cleaner energy, which is again, related to the SDGs. So in essence, MUN is teaching you the SDGs, SDGs are related to science and tech. So indeed, if you are a science or tech guy, you will be involved in MUN, your skills will be used at MUN as well. Your skills will be used in actual UN as well, because today we need folks from these research based backgrounds, academic based background, science and tech to come up and talk about these things at a diplomatic and an international level, because experts are the ones who need to guide us, in this regard. We can't just have diplomas who have international law degrees sit and discuss about life on land. No, we need experts to guide them. And that is why the role of someone who's majoring in these also becomes very important because end of the day, we want to make our world a better place. Engineers, scientists, and people from this type of field of study, also play a pivotal role in making that happen and not just decision makers and legislators.
Erik Novak: [00:23:08] Absolutely. I have to. Absolutely. I have to agree. To the extent that high level discussion requires a deep background in international relations, in geopolitics political science and the, like the matters that are discussed in such discussions, these matters. They are the ones that require the technical expertise often in the sciences, because after all technological development is what propels the tools necessary for sustainable development. And to the extent that to implement these tools, you need the high level discussions to create these tools you need, you need the niche experts. So I absolutely agree with you here. And that beside, just the importance that MUN has for personal development on individuals, it's also important that people realize that the stakeholders here is the stakeholders here, aren't just the diplomats, aren't just the public speakers. People do that for living, but indeed those who create the technologies that are then discussed. So I fully agree with you there. And I suppose. One does, I suppose what goes back, the question is what led you to choose chemical engineering as your, your major of choice? Because I assume having been involved with MUN and other areas is you could have picked a variety of professions, a variety of different college majors to follow. So what led you to pick this option?
Jaideep Singh: [00:24:45] Okay. So, I've always been a very passionate guy when it comes to chemistry and, to be fairly honest, I wanted to be a chemist, not a chemical engineer. In fact, an interesting story about my university journey is that when I, when I, was going to go to university, I was initially going to go to London, UCL, to study chemistry.
But then I had to suffer from Singapore. This is a very amazing place to do research. And I'm a very research oriented guy who wants to do something in academia. So I had a change of plans because, because this was a much, much bigger place for research. I came here and the major I took here was chemical engineering and not chemistry, which is why I ended up doing chemical engineering. But one another reason why I did take up chemical engineering. Is a, because chemical engineering in my perception is something like applied chemistry. So you're trying to engineer the chemistry you learned. And one very interesting aspect about this profession is that it's really closely working on clean energy. And that's something I'm working on at the moment as well. In my undergraduate research, we are trying to make cleaner fuels through hydrogenation of carbon dioxide, which comes out as, as a combustion byproduct. So in essence, I learned something from the SDGs and I'm trying to now relate it to the question. So I learned something from the SDGs, which is clean energy, green, sustainable technologies.
And now I am trying to use that principle I learned from the MUN programs to what I want to do in my career. So that's a brilliant way of trying to think of things that , which is something related to consensus building and foreign relations led me to direct my approach to an engineering course. And that's innovative and very interesting. And that goes on to echo what I said before, that in essence, MUN, doesn't just teach you about foreign relations. It teaches you about the problems of the world today and how you can play a role in solving them. So chemical engineering, I chose this because. It's applied. It's an applied version of chemistry and that clean energy, something I'm really enthusiastic about with that said the chemical engineers, I can go on to do PhDs and even chemistry stand alone. So I can do that in the future, but chemical engineering primarily because it's applied chemistry. And because it's about clean energy and clean energy, where did I get the idea for this it's model UN itself.
Erik Novak: [00:27:15] Oh boy. I'll have to agree with you there as well, because I see so much intersection between the things that I learn explicitly in MUN and the things that I am tasked with doing academically and the areas that I'm interested in as well as to some extent, extra curricularly in areas that one wouldn't expect to be related to me. And I see all of that amalgamating together. And it goes to show how interconnected our modern world is as well as the technologies within it, with which we interact. For example, I had to learn quite a bit about intellectual property rights as part of the work with a model of the Whipple, which is a internet world, intellectual property organization. And specifically related intellectual property related to software. And then I had to look into software creation a little bit for one of the projects that I was engaging in and better understanding how and whether it was even possible to patent these designs and to make a long story short, it's a mess and Whipple is actively engaged in trying to make it less of a mess, but it is still a bit of a mess, but a bit, a bit, it goes to show some. Even things that you wouldn't expect to have, international relations component and the sustainable development component absolutely do.
Because these days we can and should really consider the implementation aspect of many things. So. I actually find it interesting that you're choosing to do your undergraduate in chemicals engineering, which is applied chemistry. And then should you really have an interest of going into research then going into, into chemistry proper, because this way you get to also see how, how, how one implements, the things that, that you're looking at. Now chemistry is definitely not my thing. I might have to actually hire you as a tutor, Jaideep. I think I still get PTSD just thinking of the Boltzmann constant. But yeah, it's complicated. I think it was the only, the only IB corseted, and I am an IB alumni and didn't get a seven. It was just. It was a mess. I did chemistry, HL thinking I was going to like it and Oh my Lord. That was not it. It's absolutely amazing though. I really admire people who do like it, but it's just not how my brain operates. The sunset is like numbers. It's just not how my, how my brain operates.
But again, it really, again, shows how one can engage with MUN. And still have a fantastic set of other interests besides that. That aren't what one would suspect to be an immediate immediately related to the thing. I guess the final thing I going to ask you about Jaideep, is that I know you're a Sikh, and I wanted to ask whether your spirituality and religious beliefs have influenced your engagement with MUN and MUN Impact and MUN@Home as a whole.
Jaideep Singh: [00:30:29] Thank you for asking that question, and indeed I am a Sikh by faith. For those of the listeners who don't know, and I know a few, Sikh faith is a faith which originated in India and in the 15 hundreds, and it's one of the youngest faiths in the world. It teaches three basic tenants that are three basic tenants to put it in short terms. We say something called kirat karo which means to work hard. Vand chako, vand chacko means to share your earnings and your resources with those who need it. And, naam japo means to remember God. So in essence, my spirituality of remembering God, of working hard, and sharing my resources with those less fortunate is what has sort of intertwined with what I'm doing by learning MUN. When I am trying to help those, my perception is to reach out to those who don't have resources, who don't have quality education. We are working on SDG four for that, those who do not have good healthcare, those who do not have food, those who do not have money to even live a day properly with good food. This is all my faith teaches me to do from my own side. And this is a very small way in which I am trying to help the world. So indeed my faith has definitely intertwined with what I'm trying to do. Though I do always say that I want to be a better Sikh because I don't pray that often. But, at the same time, MUN is a way I am trying to serve my community and I'm sure, my faith definitely plays a role because that's the way I've been brought up. And that's the way, I, I viewed the world and in fact, my faith also teaches me that all faiths in this world are equal. All faiths teach the same thing, same basic tenants. And following that ideology, I feel everyone who is spiritual has the same basic tenants of making the world a better place. And that's what my religion teaches me as well. And I know that anyone who's spiritual would agree with me when I say that it's our duty to help the world. It's our duty to help those who are under, under nourished. Those who don't have the resources to lead a dignified life. And as individuals of this world who are privileged, I think we do need to play our part.
And MUN is one of the ways, SDGs is one of the ways. Advocacy, what we are doing currently is one of the ways, but there is something more we need to do. And that's why MUN Impact is working to promote impact from the MUN program's impact from the SDGs actual ground level work. And that's what we all need to strive to do. Regardless of whether we are spiritual or not, wedo believe that we are individuals who are compassionate and who care about our responsibility to the world. It's our duty. We need to help people around us. And this is one of the ways we can do that.
Erik Novak: [00:33:30] Hmm. That's, that's, that's pretty powerful in deep. I mean, the reason I asked this is because I had to do my own personal spiritual soul searching for a number of years. I never really assimilated with any given religious structure in particular. I was raised in the community that is deeply influenced by the Abrahamic religions as a whole. And I tend to dislike the Abrahamic conception, not as life, but like I tend to not really, not, not really vibe incredibly well with the Abraham conception of the divine. And so I actually searched, in with the religions of the Indian subcontinent. To better understand my sense of purpose and the reasons why I get up in the morning and to build my own metaphysical framework. And this has helped me become a better individual, a better MUNer and someone who I think helps interact with the world more on one of the things that certainly affected me quite a bit was the Guru Granath Sahib which is the whole scripture of Sikhism and as well as better understanding the teachings of Guru Nanak and his nine disciples. So, I mean, Sikhism has surprisingly enough, been a religion that influenced my own, beliefs and perceptions, quite a bit in particular with the understanding that all religions portray some form of truth and I think most importantly for me, it's concept of invocative meditation, which is, I think the num chapel that you mentioned earlier. And invocative meditation has been something that I implemented into my routines quite a bit. So I do a bit of invocative meditation every day, and to the extent that other religions have prayer and other things that can very similar to invocative meditation, I guess, because I don't exactly know what the invocative meditations of Sikhism are saying. They tend to be, I tend to find them particularly effective in terms of soothing my own mind. So I actually do the, I actually do the mantra sometimes. And so what you might call a. I am awfully close to the Sikh religion for, for, for, for very unexpected reasons, I guess. So I have a lot of respect for it and, history overall. So I, whenever I need to seek, I I'm always fascinated and I like asking them out that because it's a very interesting, ontological framework and they invite the reader to read up on the original little more because it's incredibly beautiful and powerful, and I would put it together with, the Vedantic tradition as well as certain traditions in Buddhism as being incredibly effective in helping us understand our sense of self and our sense of the divine in a way that's less anthropomorphic as it were than what you get with the Abrahamic traditions. So I do invite the listeners look instead, especially if they're open minded as tends to be the case with many MUN practitioners. So there's a little bit of a detraction, I suppose, but yeah, no, I mean, I guess my last question to you Jaideep is that, I mean, we have been talking for like 70 minutes at this point, but my last question to you is what do you think the future has in store for you, both in terms of nun, as well as in terms of what you intend to accomplish as an individual?
Jaideep Singh: [00:37:12] No. I think what I'm primarily working on is of course, MUN@Home. And I want to see it grow as, as much as I can. It's already growing really well. I want to see it become a very good source of learning about MUN. I'm trying to be a bit, you know, independent of format, which I would say, because this is something which always delegates get confused with because the Hauge follows something else, the UNA-USA follows something else. I think what we are essentially teaching is the basic idea of what you need to do in any conference. You need to do consensus building at any conference. You need to do block formation in any conference, you need to do a resolution in any conference. You need to do a policy statement in any conference. And in a way that being said, we are also teaching the sustainable development goals, which becomes all the more important in this decade because we just have 10 years left. Not, not just me. It's not just me when I say this, this, this countless other people, diplomats included. It's very difficult. It's very difficult to meet all these SDGs in these 10, in these 10 years, it's not possible to meet them at all, but we can make a progress on them as this progress we make is what is going to count in the future. So I feel that I I'm trying my best to advocate for them along with all my fellow wonderful colleagues at MUN Impact in addition, uniO-Mun which had sprung up very well. Another one of my colleagues, Kabir, he has worked on that in spring and is finally springing up after seven years. I'll probably try to get involved more in that. In addition, other than MUN, my professional life, I am working on undergrad research. I hopefully if, if, if God, if God wills, I, I, I hope to publish a paper by the end of my undergraduate studies. And if that is a success, I'll hopefully do a PhD somewhere in the States. And then on, I, I intend to work as a professor and get into what I love doing research and teaching. Simultaneously, and at the same time with my background of the SDGs, I think that's what would be a wonderful experience teaching students about how, what you've learned in science and tech is linked to what you can do to make the world a better place and how that's linked to the sustainable development goals. Even though they might not exist by them, but at least I can tell my students that we had a history that time and we in the COVID-19 pandemic, in the time of a worldwide pandemic when people were wearing masks, we tried to do our best to be sustainable development goals in the comfort of your chair and your desk.
Erik Novak: [00:39:44] Oh boy, the future does seem bright indeed. And I'm excited to see what a uniO-MUN looks like. I've heard good things about it, and I think there's a vast untapped market of university students that could be obviously in MUN Impact's best interest to tap into. And I believe university students are actually going to play a role in the Global Summit, 2.0, this coming October. So I really am excited to see what, what comes out of all of this and indeed the heights that you reach as a whole Jaideep, but for now, I'm afraid we have run out of time, but I believe that we were able to cover a lot of ground. And I think that listeners will be very grateful for the insights that you've given them. Thank you so much for being here Jaideep and in the words of Guru Nanak, yahy guru. So if you, dear listener enjoyed this episode, don't forget to like, share, follow, subscribe and show this episode to your friends and colleagues. But for now, this has been ComMUNiqué and we yield the floor until next time.