Aaron Maniam

Aaron advises our team in his two areas of expertise: how governments adopt, enable and regulate emerging technologies like AI, and how governments organise themselves to plan and prepare for long-term challenges like technological change.

He teaches on both these issues at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, where he is Fellow of Practice and Director of Digital Transformation Education.

He co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Technology Policy (Jan 2022 to Dec 2024), and on the OECD’s Expert Group on AI Futures. He previously served in a range of leadership positions in the government of Singapore, most recently as Deputy Secretary at the then-Ministry of Communications and Information, overseeing policy on the digital economy, digital society, digital diplomacy and Singapore’s global branding. Between 2009-2012, he was the founding Head of Singapore’s Centre for Strategic Futures.

Aaron writes and speaks regularly on technology policy, strategic foresight and anticipatory governance, as well as broader issues of public sector innovation and capacity building. Outside of work, he has published two collections of poetry (the first nominated for the Singapore Literature Prize), and is a trained facilitator of interfaith dialogue.

Aaron earned his PhD in Public Policy and MPP from Oxford’s Blavatnik School, an MA in International and Development Economics from Yale University, and double first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Somerville College, Oxford.