Monday, January 24, 2011

Singaporeans No. 2 on CNN's 'coolest' list

Singaporeans have been named the second 'coolest nationality' in the world by travel website CNNgo - and it all has to do with the Republic's burgeoning geek culture.

'With its absurdly computer-literate population, Singapore is geek central and its people can therefore claim their rightful place as avatars of modern cool,' wrote Mr Barry Neild, the author of the report, which was published last Friday.

Brazilians clinched top spot as the coolest people on the planet. The Jamaicans came in third, followed by the Mongolians, the Americans and the Spanish.

The report proclaimed geeks as no longer the laughing stock in a digital age where 'old school notions of cool have been rebooted'.

And the travel website's Singaporean icon of cool? Twelve-year-old primary school pupil Lim Ding Wen, who was the world's youngest iPhone application developer at the age of nine.

He developed a drawing application called Doodle Kids which lets users draw on the touchscreen of the iPhone using their fingers.

He was ranked alongside other icons of cool such as Spain's Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem and the United States' actor and sex symbol Johnny Depp.

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