Kuik Shiao Yin is the co-founder of The Thought Collective, an organization that aims to drive innovation in civic learning through their businesses School of Thought, Think Tank Publishing, Thinkscape, and Food For Thought. She believes Singapore has potential to be a global leader in social innovation. The Thought Collective was founded in 2002 to address student apathy and indifference through a socially responsible tuition program that helps students excel academically while developing concern for social issues. Their goal is to make quality education accessible to all students regardless of financial background.

1. Bits and pieces of Kuik Shiao Yin, co-
founder of The Thought Collective

2. Information of the co-founder
Shiao-Yin co-leads The Thought Collective together with fellow co-
founder/directors Tong Yee and Elizabeth Kon. School of Thought drives
innovation in civic learning to nurture generations of thought leaders.

3. Shiao-Yin’s Views
Shiao-Yin believes that Singapore has been blessed to be a blessing. She loves
helping people live their dreams to do good through the marketplace. She
mentors young social entrepreneurs and often shares her perspectives on
entrepreneurship and innovation through various one-on-one sessions,
business competitions, workshops and seminars. Currently, she and her team
are working with NGOs, corporations and government agencies to co-create
new avenues to enable Singapore to become the Silicon Valley for social
innovation.

4. What they had been doing
From the start, they have always seen SOT as more than a tuition centre. We
hope to be more like an R&D unit for socially responsible education, dedicated
to rethinking and reworking the way we (and others) teach and learn about the
world.
Every year, we work at refining our existing teaching strategies as well as
experimenting with new mediums and avenues of civic education. From School
of Thought, we created a current affairs magazine publishing arm (Think Tank
Publishing), a learning journeys company (Thinkscape) and a socially conscious
restaurant business (Food For Thought). Our four businesses are known
informally as The Thought Collective. Each business expresses a different
aspect of our multi-disciplinary approach to education - and more importantly,
it puts our classroom talk to the test in the real world before a real audience.

5. Information and history of The Thought
Collective
At the heart of all our national and global problems lies the long-term problem of apathy. You
cannot hope to solve anything as long as not enough people know or care.
As teachers, the group had seen too many young Singaporeans emerge out of the school
system jaded, knowing and caring only as much as the exams required them to know and care
about. They were troubled to see the indifference many Singaporeans showed not only towards
Singapore itself but to the world and Life in general. It was not too hard to imagine how these
youths would grow up to be unhappy and disenchanted adults, pessimistic about their ability to
change their circumstances.
Since 2002, They have been refining a socially responsible tuition programme that would meet
young Singaporeans' needs on both the practical and idealistic fronts. They show students how
to work realistically towards better exam grades while scaffolding for them a better way of
thinking and caring about the world's affairs. They also share with them the possibilities and
opportunities available for anyone to make a difference. They believe good education should be
available for all: any student with severe financial difficulties can apply for School of Thought's
in-house Financial Aid Scheme.

6. Sources
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/photos/singapore-9-social-enterprise-
slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Fsingapore-9-social-enterprise-slideshow
%252Fkuik-shiao-yin-photo-1342771938.html
http://www.school-of-thought.com/sot/subpage.php?p=aboutus