MELANIE WU
Head of learning of General Assembly
Canadian-born Melanie Wu was a visual arts teacher at a local public secondary school when she first came to Singapore in 2012. There, she increased the passing rate of graduating students in visual arts through individualised lesson plans and teaching time management.
After four years with the Ministry of Education, Melanie, who holds degrees in arts management and education, joined General Assembly in 2017 as an education programmes producer, mainly managing the Singapore outpost’s full-time immersive courses and part-time classes, and making sure they are delivered with an industry-relevant curriculum and by the best-in-field instructors.
A pioneer in skills-based training and career transformation, New York-based General Assembly bridges the gap between a formal education and the demands of today’s working world with bootcamp-type courses that translate to more professional opportunities. Established in 2011, it has since helped hundreds of thousands of students build and grow their careers in a rapidly evolving digital economy. It also boasts a like-minded global community of 35,000 graduates.
In her five-and-a-half years with the global education institution, Melanie has successfully launched over 200 courses and works closely with General Assembly’s government partners to grow tech talents in Singapore. Now, as head of learning, Melanie oversees its programmes in both Singapore and Australia, with a focus on strategy and market growth.
On why a career in education is meaningful for her, she says: “Nothing beats knowing that I am able to help someone achieve their goals. I got to where I am today because someone trusted me and empowered me to break out of my comfort zone. So, it’s important for me to be able to do the same for someone else.”
Founder and CEO of Ocean Purpose Project
With no professional background in ocean conservation or environmental science, Mathilda D’silva left her corporate job in 2020 to start social enterprise Ocean Purpose Project (OPP) – proving that passion and purpose can do wonders.
Seven years ago, after participating in a dragon boat competition in Boracay, Philippines, Mathilda fell terribly ill and was hospitalised. She later discovered that the idyllic island’s clear waters were heavily polluted with untreated wastewater from sewage pipes, causing her to develop autoimmune diseases.
As someone who enjoys being active and on the go, Mathilda’s life changed completely. “I had to find some kind of purpose behind all of it,” she says. This took shape as OPP, which works to solve the ocean plastic crisis by converting waste plastic into fuel and hydrogen, bioremediation (creating bioplastics from seaweed and mussels used to filter toxins and capture carbon), and behavioural change through community projects.
“The word ‘purpose’ is embedded in the company name because OPP is my way of preventing what happened to me from ever happening again to anybody, and finding a solution to all of that ocean pollution that caused it,” she adds.
What Mathilda lacks in environmental expertise, she makes up for with her natural aptitude for connecting people and community building. Through OPP, she is working to create an ecosystem involving various players – from researchers and scientists to fish farmers and experts in the petrochemical and plastics industries. Her current goal is to attain enough funds and investments to carry out the proposed engineered solutions on a larger scale, to make the larger impact she believes they are capable of.