From sports to music – and arts entrepreneurship

Life Sciences alumna Eileen CHAI is a textbook overachiever: she remains the youngest Singaporean athlete to compete at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games at the age of seven, and she excelled in not one but three elite sports – gymnastics, athletics and diving.

She is also an accomplished violinist, a Ministry of Education-certified physical education teacher, an International Technical Official for gymnastics and diving, author of a best-selling book on mental resilience for youths, and founder of 3am Music Collective and Strings for Kindness, two social enterprises that harness the power of music to spread awareness of mental health conditions and empower youths in society.

How does she manage? She says, “I have learned to stay focused…and to embrace the next step to make it good or even better.”

More importantly, she looks forward to “soaking up more knowledge”.

With this in mind, Eileen is now taking #MasterOfArts at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in Arts and Cultural Entrepreneurship, so that she can continue to learn and grow in the arts and cultural fields, and to share the life lessons she learned through music to enrich the community.