Aaron Maniam is a Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School, and Director of the School's Digital Transformation Education Programme, where he focuses on the intersections between digitalisation, major public policy domains and public administration. He holds degrees from Oxford and Yale, including a PhD from the Blavatnik School - his doctoral dissertation focused on public sector digitalisation in Estonia, New Zealand and Singapore. He previously served as a policymaker in the Singapore government, including stints in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Embassy in Washington DC, Prime Minister's Office, Civil Service College (CSC), Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Communications and Information. His favourite jobs include having been the first Head of the Singapore Government's newly-formed Centre for Strategic Futures (CSF) in January 2010, and starting the CSC Applied Simulation Training (CAST) Laboratory, an experiment to apply principles of "serious play" to training public officers to deal with complex environments.
In January 2011, Aaron was one of eight young leaders named an "Outstanding Young Singaporean" by the Orchid Jayceettes of Singapore. In June 2012, he was conferred the Singapore Youth Award, the highest national honour for young people who exemplify excellence in their professional lives and community work, by the Prime Minister. He was identified by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in January 2013.
Aaron is a Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar.