Throwback: “I Am Talented”, From The Heart

The “I Am Talented” team.

With the next edition of “I Am Talented” happening next week, this is a good reminder of why we do what we do, the moment I met David, and how we volunteer in our own ways.

Read ““I Am Talented”, From The Heart“, and here’s a short excerpt:

“I met David five years ago, when we joined the new youth council of the United Nations Association of Singapore (UNAS). And despite working on a few projects together (including a sustainable development conference in Sarawak, Malaysia) we had few chats, and I only heard his story at the first “I Am Talented” (IAT) event in February 2011. Back then the intent of IAT was for participating students to acquire new skills and be inspired by the accounts of adversity and triumph, and today the initiative – in its third edition – maintains the same philosophies, anchored even more firmly by the core values of discovery, diligence, and determination. This year students choose from nine workshops, developing interests in photography and robotics for instance over three Saturdays at ITE College Central.

We were not the closest, but I was chasing more readers and I knew David’s account – after a recent interview with a young, aspiring chefhad gone viral – would draw eyeballs. In this sense I featured him before it was mainstream, I remind David jokingly now.

In the next few years we continued with activities in the council, such as the UNAS Model United Nations Preparatory Conference and the second IAT, and after he left the organisation he busied himself with other endeavours around the world. Busied is probably an understatement, as he shuttled from presentations in schools to a 250-kilometre trek across the Gobi Desert, and while we had the occasional catch-up it was a nice surprise when David texted me last year about restarting the IAT gig.”