The HEAD Foundation is an International Charitable Organisation, registered with the Commissioner of Charities in Singapore in 2013. It was set up to carry out philanthropic works in education but later extended its remit to include healthcare to improve lives in Asia, particularly in the less developed parts of Southeast Asia.

“Education breeds confidence. Education breeds hope. Hope breeds peace“. These words from the Chinese sage Confucius are as relevant today as they were first written 2.7 millennia ago. Thus, when The HEAD Foundation was first set up, education was at the core of our mission. HEAD then stood for Higher Education for Asian Development. Over the years our mission has expanded to encompass other aspects of education. The role of education in fostering social and human capital and economic development is well documented. Examples abound from Singapore to China, from Korea to Hong Kong.

Since 2018 The HEAD Foundation has expanded its mission to also cover Healthcare from an East-West perspective. The intrinsic value of good health for a better quality of life is self-evident. The importance of a healthy population for social-economic growth and development is also well documented.

In 2013, The Lancet Commission published a study which found that 24% of the growth of total income in low-income and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2011 resulted from the improvement in their population’s health, by way of indicators such as lower infant mortality, less absenteeism, and more years of productive working lives. More recently, in a 2020 report the McKinsey Global Institute also concluded that improved global healthcare using existing knowledge and treatments could add USD12.0 trillion to global GDP in 2040. It also quoted other studies which found that health contributed almost as much to income growth as education.

For education we support projects and programmes which directly or indirectly result in the most positive impact on the largest number of beneficiaries. We support early childhood education as it is critical to ensure children start off their education journey with a strong foundation. STEM education is another area of our focus. Students with a good grounding in STEM subjects have the foundation for vocational training that improves their employability.

We are also a strong believer in leadership training and capacity building. Any educational system and school requires effective leaders at policy, management and operational levels. It’s a truism to say that motivated and well-trained school principals and teachers are crucial for educating children. In many of the less developed parts of Southeast Asia, there is a dearth of effective education leaders and teachers. The HEAD Foundation tries within the limits of our capacity to address some of these gaps.

As with education, healthcare is an extremely broad area. The HEAD Foundation focuses on healthcare projects which adopt an East-West perspective. We also plan to focus on some of the neglected areas of tropical diseases, disease prevention and promoting wellness education and programmes.

In the area of thought leadership, The HEAD Foundation regularly engages policy-makers, practitioners and specialists to participate in workshops and webinars on education, healthcare, science and the environment. The findings from these events are documented and shared with government authorities, practitioners and civil societies.

Partnerships with relevant and like-minded institutions is an indispensable part of The HEAD Foundation’s efforts to generate the most impact on those we seek to help. Our current active partners include the National Institute of Singapore, Mayo Clinic, Asian Development Bank, Singapore General Hospital, Jinan University Hospital, Alzheimer’s Disease Association and SEAMEO.

A four-member Board of Directors provides strategic direction and supervision of the management team. Another four-member Advisory Board chaired by Prof. Cham Tao Soon provides guidance and advice to the Board of Directors. We also tap on the expertise of a panel of distinguished Fellows.

The Evolution of our Logo
The Foundation’s first logo (right) highlighted its focus on improving lives in Asia through supportable causes in human capital and education.

THF unveiled a new logo in April 2021, which further emphasises the synthesis of Eastern and Western values that forms the basis of its philosophy and operations. The letters “H” and “E”, represented in Asian-style calligraphic script, highlight our two key areas of work – Healthcare and Education – and together with the Foundation’s name in bold black text, form a contemporary representation of our mission to contribute to the sustainable development of Asia.

Current and Recent Projects

Over the last two years, The HEAD Foundation has supported more than a dozen projects covering several ASEAN countries, produced many publications, conducted workshops and symposiums, panel discussions, book launches and hosted public lectures at the Foundation’s premises.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, we created a series of webinars, where local and international education and healthcare specialists share their insights. Webinars enable us to transcend time zones and physical distances to reach a broader and more diversified audience. We also launched Making HEADway, a teacher professional development programme consisting of webinars with accompanying handbooks, which aims to address the learning crisis brought on by the pandemic.

Our most recent effort is an ambitious EdTech project for early childhood education named Sekolah Enuma Indonesia. Based on award winning self-learning applications developed by Enuma Inc., pilot projects were successfully conducted in Medan and Palembang respectively by the Foundation and Kuok group companies. Sekolah Enuma Indonesia is a tablet based application which does not require sustained internet access. Following the success of the pilot projects The HEAD Foundation is ready to move to the next stage to work with Indonesia based partners to roll out Sekolah Enuma Indonesia to serve more underserved students during their formative years.

The HEAD Foundation also provided most of the funding in a multi-year clinical research project to assess the efficacy of TCM Tuina in alleviating chronic lower back pain. The project is jointly conducted by the Singapore General Hospital, Jinan University Hospital in China and Mayo Clinic in the US.