Pooja Bhandari heads Impact and Special Projects for AWWA. She spent 6 years at the Ministry of Social and Family Development, heading policy on disability early intervention for children, and then manpower planning for the social service sector. In a prior life, she was a diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). She also serves on the Board of Tasek Jurong and is on the UNICEF International Council. She wrote the EveryChild.sg white paper after seeing firsthand the huge difference in student goals and resources between local vs. international schools in Singapore, and the huge difference in development outcomes it had for children.

An entrepreneur at heart, Aarathi is passionate about connecting partner communities through

causes close to her heart, in particular, moving the social mobility needle for women and children, through education and employment. With a career trajectory that has taken different paths from corporate to volunteer organisations to start-ups, Aarathi harnesses the power from her experiences to nurture communities that she comes in contact with.

She is a KeyNote speaker with the KeyNote Women’s Directory, and serves on the Board of AWARE as the Treasurer, and on the Board of the Malaysian Association in Singapore (MASIS).

Dawn Fung is the author of Homeschooling in Singapore: An Education and the founder of Homeschool Singapore. She heads Little U, a microschool consultancy with a strong team of parent-educators specialising in personalised education. She is working on a 30-year manifesto to see education reform in Singapore, where every child, parent and educator have full rights and access to great education.

Dr Hana Alhadad is a neurodiversity advocate, therapeutic playmaker, and liberative parent. Hana has extensive experience in community development and psychology, and is currently focusing on supporting neurodivergent children and families, single mothers and victim-survivors of family violence, and wellbeing of children and youth. She applies compassionate communication and trauma-informed approaches in her professional roles as a researcher at AWARE and adjunct faculty at the National University of Singapore, as well as in her community work and personal life.

John Tan is the founder of Saturday Kids - a curiosity school for children - and Doyobi - an edtech startup that helps kids build skills through collaborative problem-solving in the metaverse. He is also an investor in tech startups, in particular startups reimagining the future of work and learning such as Padlet, Kubrio, Contra and Beanstalk. John is an Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific Leader, Transcend Fellow and Ashoka Changemaker. He sits on the board of Ninja Van and ErudiFi.

Joline Lim is a parent-advocate and transformational parenting coach who grew through her lived experience as a single mother of two, caregiving for family members with emotional and mental health challenges, as well as discovering how vital respectful parenting has been in the foundational development of her neurodivergent child.

She gently and actively empowers caregivers and educators through free virtual safe spaces, online resources, and offering supportive educational programmes through Chapter Zero‘s “Nurturing Village”, a peaceful, collaborative and trauma-informed community collective and resource center.

Tim Wong is a community enabler, and a parent-advocate for respectful parenting and special educational needs (SEN) education reform. He has worked with other parent-advocates to raise awareness of SEN challenges in mainstream schools to education officials and other parents. He is active in raising the need for respectful parenting through the Gentle Fathering SG platform on social media and in parent groups.