Better Tomorrow

Power couple Parag and Ayesha Khanna’s twin passions of travel and technology form the foundation for the future world they envision living in—and they want to share the formula with everyone

- Karen Tee

The Khannas do not go on holidays. Instead, Parag and Ayesha Khanna, as well as their two children Zara and Zubin, take “mini-baticals”. The word, a play on the term sabbatical, was coined by Parag to describe the kind of trips this globetrotting family takes.

“This is when you go somewhere for a couple of months and you make the most of it by immersing in as much of the culture as you can. So you really dive in and not waste time because it is a relatively short stay,” says Parag, a leading global strategy adviser and bestselling author on books about the future of world order, including The Future is Asian and Connectography. “We look for places that will be interesting and dynamic to expose the family to new experiences.”

They had meant to spend their next “mini-batical” in San Francisco this year but the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic put a pause to their plans. Instead, for the first time in as long as any of the Khannas can remember, they have hunkered down in one location—Singapore—to ride out this crisis. This country, the couple says, is one of the safest in the world to shelter in.

The dynamic duo, both of whom are highly sought-after on the international conference and talk circuit in their respective fields of expertise, relocated here in 2012 after Ayesha completed her PhD in Information Systems and Innovation from the London School of Economics. They became Singapore citizens a few years ago.