Donor
Quantedge Foundation
Mr Xie Yao Quan
Chief Executive Officer
“We are deeply passionate about improving social mobility in Singapore. Among the major social challenges in Singapore, social mobility cuts across age, income strata and background,” Mr Xie says.
Paradoxically, as Singapore continues to be successful as a nation and more parents are able to confer more advantages to their children for longer, social mobility will become a bigger challenge, he explains.
“In education, it is now widely accepted that a child’s earliest years matter a great deal. But the later years matter, too,” says Mr Xie. “Therefore, intervention and support have to be sustained throughout the life course of a child and youth or the effects of early efforts will fade out.”
That is why the foundation has decided to make university access a major focus of its work, where the goal is to ensure affordability for full-time Singaporean undergraduates regardless of their financial means.
Quantedge Foundation adopts a systems-level lens in uplifting the lives of disadvantaged children and youth. This means investing time to understand issues holistically, investing in deep relationships with various partner organisations, and investing philanthropic capital in a way that takes on calculated risks and encourages experimentation by the sector and with the sector.
Mr Xie says, “Ultimately, it is about catalysing impact at scale, impact at the systems level and impact that lasts.”
About the Award
The Quantedge Foundation – SUSS Education Access Award, made possible by Quantedge Foundation, helps Singaporean students with demonstrated financial need to receive financial aid for access to free education. Each award will cover the funding gap after the student receives the Ministry of Education bursary. As the value of the study award is based on the actual funding gap, the student does not have to pay any tuition fees and is free from any financial obligation.
Quantedge Foundation – SUSS Education Access Award Recipient
Dorcas Shee
Bachelor of Science in Finance
Class of 2024
A Community of Care
Dorcas was only a week at SUSS as a freshman when her father passed away suddenly. It was a challenging time for her to manage the shock and grief, family finances and new life changes.
Yet this did not stop Dorcas from giving her best at university, where she began joining a few communities. One of them was SUSS Our Well-being Listeners (OWLs), a group of students trained to care for peers in need.
“The OWLs are a very strong community,” she says. “It has a very clear vision and goals that allow it to be so effective. But I also quickly saw that the OWLs’ true strength lies in its culture of genuine care.”
When sharing meals, running events together or hanging out, the OWLs never fail to ask one another, “How are you coping in life?”
Dorcas says, “This real concern for people is what makes the OWLs a true community.”
Dorcas is grateful to receive the Quantedge Foundation – SUSS Education Access Award, which covered her final semester’s tuition fees.
“From a family of three, it’s down to just mum and me now. We have to be extra prudent about our resources,” she says. “The award definitely helps me save some money that will go into our rainy-day fund!”