They are talented, highly accomplished, and are making waves on a global scale. We speak to three extraordinary youths under 21 about their remarkable achievements in advocacy, entrepreneurship, and the arts.
What does a Princeton University undergraduate from Singapore have in common with popular local singers Stefanie Sun and Jasmine Sokko? Aside from the fact that they share the same nationality, all three women had their profiles splashed across the Times Square billboard in New York.
Last year, Chong Weilyn was invited to be on the billboard by Nasdaq Inc, for the one-year anniversary of the American financial services corporation, The Venture Equity Project – one of the many feathers in the proverbial cap of this multi-hyphenate.
Just 20 years young, Weilyn is already making her presence known in the entrepreneurial and venture equity space. The economics major, who grew up in the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US, is a board member of the San Francisco-based Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center (NEC), where she helps to provide a Gen Z perspective on various topics.
She’s also the host and producer of NEC’s ongoing The Venture Equity Project Podcast, where she discusses topics touching on improving inclusivity and funding equity for entrepreneurs of colour.
That’s not all – Weilyn helms another podcast, The Entrepre女ers Network, which she co-founded in 2021. It aims to share insights from female entrepreneurs and connect like-minded women from all over the world. The podcast has since featured over 130 founders, and reached an audience of about 30,000 in Spotify.
According to her, one of the highlights of this programme is being able to spark intergenerational conversations with the guest speakers and listeners.
“The most successful thing that we’ve done was to connect a female high school student in Hong Kong with a Canadian woman entrepreneur, and that was so cool to see,” she says.
Weilyn’s passion is palpable as she emphasises the importance of inclusivity, especially when it comes to the topic of female entrepreneurship and empowerment.
“One incident that led me to create The Entrepre女ers Network was when I proposed an entrepreneurship initiative for women at Princeton, but was told by the school’s entrepreneurship club that they ‘can’t do anything’ for women entrepreneurs until they boost [interest in] entrepreneurship in general.
“Which makes no sense to me, because if you want entrepreneurship that’s inclusive, you need to include people, right?” she recalls with bemusement.
This desire to bring people together was what spurred Weilyn and her high school friend Alexandra Debow, to launch another start-up recently. Somewhere Somehow is a nifty shared social calendar tool that connects to one’s calendar, allowing the user to have an easy overview of the schedules of people they want to meet.
“You select the friends you want to hang out with, and it basically overlays all your calendars on the back end, showing you times that you are all available to hang out. You can create an event and you can send it to your friends, and it automatically syncs events to your calendar as well,” she explains.
Weilyn shares that the app is currently in beta stage and that she’s super excited for how it develops this year, “which will make it even easier for users to hang out with people”.
“We have received some really great user feedback. Moving forward, we are looking to fundraise pretty soon. We are also planning to roll out more features. Our bigger vision and mission is really to be a company that helps change the way we connect with people by making it as seamless as possible,” she says.
While Somewhere Somehow lets users initiate meet-ups virtually, the inspiration for the tool could very well be from Weilyn’s own day-to-day schedule.
For me, one of my biggest failures was thinking I could do it all. I was part of six different organisations, trying to lead them all. I was not fully present [for some of these activities], and it was a huge mistake.
My ‘big word’ from the past year is intention. Being more intentional with my time: who I surround myself with, and who I want to be.
Between school, hosting two podcasts, and launching her startup, Weilyn ran the Philadelphia Marathon last November, and was part of Princeton’s rowing team. However, the physical demands of rowing eventually became too overwhelming for Weilyn, and she quit the sport after a year.
It was an experience that led her to further examine her relationship with failure. She admits that her propensity for trying new things – and being someone who strives to “give my all to everything” – led her to “commit more time than I had”.
“I like to keep busy and meet new people. I like to put myself out there with all of that fun stuff, but sometimes it’s not manageable – I sometimes don’t get enough sleep,” says Weilyn.
“For me, one of my biggest failures was thinking I could do it all. I was part of six different organisations, trying to lead them all. I was not fully present [for some of these activities], and it was a huge mistake. My ‘big word’ from the past year is intention. Being more intentional with my time: who I surround myself with, and who I want to be.”
Nevertheless, this tireless self-starter remains positive in her outlook. Weilyn reflects on her ongoing journey with a philosophical perspective.
“I think as long as you’re learning something from [your failure], and that you’re staying true to who you are… Sure, it’s a setback, but you can get over it, and that’s more important than what the failure was,” she says.
