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A life in motion

These are the moments that shaped the question I keep asking.

1966 — 2001

1966

Born in Singapore, Year of the Fire Horse.

1973

Mother passes away. Time, from that point, feels like something not to be wasted.

1984

Age 17. Joins the first NJC Himalayan Expedition to Nepal. First encounter with deep poverty. Something is planted.

1989

Graduates from the University of London with First Class Honours in Physics and Computer Science. Travels solo to Morocco and Kenya. Begins a lifelong curiosity about tribal cultures, wildlife and what a life well lived actually looks like.

Early 1990s

Joins the Singapore Adventurers' Club. Meets Jin on a trekking trip to Endau Rompin.

1994

Marries Jin. Earns MSc from Cranfield University. Travels West Africa together — Gambia, Senegal, Mali. Returns with more questions than answers.

1995

Founds Stone Edge Experiential. Begins building rock climbing walls and running outdoor programmes.

1997

As Vice-President of the Singapore Mountaineering Federation, launches the Singapore National Climbing Standards — later adopted across Southeast Asia.

1999

Designs and leads the A-Day-in-a-Wheelchair project. 200 wheelchairs. Senior officials, architects and corporate leaders experience Singapore as wheelchair users for one day.

2001

Discovers pottery. Launches Clay-Street.com — a small website for local potters that quietly becomes something more.

2007 — 2026

2007

Founds essentiallyMERIDIAN, a meridian acupressure social enterprise, partnering with People's Association to offer courses nationwide.

2008

Experienced rice planting and harvesting with the Watasittikul family in Chiang Rai. Founds TigerlandRiceFarm.

2009

Launches Clay IN-SIGHT — a volunteer-led pottery workshop for the visually impaired, later evolved into social enterprise work.

2011

Takes Jin and Robyn to Kenya and India for a full year of seva. This changes everything. The Tribal School Project in Jharkhand. Children's Garden Home in Nairobi. Hands Up For Kids in Lamu. Seva becomes a way of life, not an idea.

2012

Returns to the Tribal School Project to follow up on the solar classroom initiative. Returns to Children's Garden Home to begin a classroom building initiative.

2016

Returns to Children's Garden Home. Trains a pioneer team of youth in Meridian 101 — acupressure and guasha self-healing skills.

2018

Returns to CGH. Ten community projects completed in eighteen days, all funded by a network of generous individuals back home.

2019

Featured in A Magazine. A rare pause to reflect on the journey.

2022

Returns to alma mater National Junior College as Guest-of-Honour for the 53rd College Day. Delivers a talk: "Social Entrepreneurship for a Better World." Returns to CGH. Raises funds for eleven projects — including a classroom block, a perimeter wall, sewing machines, an audio system, and the seeds of a social business. Initiates construction of a Special Education School Block.

2023

Returns to CGH. Launches the Special Education School Block. Co-creates Tartfully Yours — a social business employing youth with special needs — with Victor, Snaida and Moses.

2025

Walks the Tasman Glacier, New Zealand. Still chasing horizons.

2026

Age 60. Initiates the first phase of solar electrification for CGH. Redesigns the CGH website. Prepares to return to Nairobi in June for the home's 25th anniversary. And begins, slowly and deliberately, to distil forty years into something that might be useful to others.

Tasman Glacier, New Zealand · 2025
"Still chasing horizons."

The story is still being written.

What I know now, at sixty, that I did not know at twenty: the journey does not end when you arrive somewhere. The journey is the thing. And the most important arrivals are not to places but to people — and to the moment when you finally stop rushing long enough to see what is already flowering in front of you.

Read the reflections