Singapore Prototype Scoop — 6 Months ↓

Every life, a treasure.
Every story, a love.

Every family, your identity.
Every community, our wisdom.

A video-first Capture Platform connecting one Storyteller to one Story Keeper.

For the individual, Treasures Bowl nourishes physical health, emotional resilience, clear truth, loving kindness, and harmony with the planet.

For the world community, Treasures Bowl enables intergenerational storytelling to honor wisdom and catalyze harmony between cultures of East and West.

We start before window closes

Next 5 years

70M Alive today, born 1940 or earlier
2 wks A language disappears
Get Involved Meet the Founder ↓
A window closing daily

Only 1% of the world's population lives past 85.    This generation — WWII survivors, witnesses of decolonization, first-generation diaspora — holds irreplaceable lived memory, rarely recorded: the grandmother who ran a market stall, the grandfather who rebuilt after the war.    We have five years to reach the 70 million who are still here.

By video — capturing voice, gesture, and pause — since more than 80% of people over 85 have some hearing loss.    And urgency: a living language disappears every two weeks.

We start with the Chinese diaspora — an estimated 70 million people worldwide, and a community our founding team can reach — and invite every other diaspora and community group to join as Bowl Circles.

Our focus is those born in 1940 or earlier — the generation at greatest risk of being lost.    Storytellers born through 1950 are warmly welcome too, widening the circle while we race to reach the oldest first.

What is Treasures Bowl?

What if every person’s wisdom could be passed on? Treasures Bowl removes what stands in the way — language, hearing, distance — pairing a Storyteller with a Story Keeper for one real video conversation that grows into a living archive for future generations.

Each conversation is guided by vetting and prompts that make sharing safe and easy, on a device-agnostic Capture Platform that rewards the Story Keeper's time.    All content is consent-only, revocable throughout, and owned by the Storyteller and Story Keeper.

In Chinese tradition, the character for “to listen” is composed of ear, eyes, undivided attention, and heart — true listening happens only when all four align.

How a Connection Happens

This is the Singapore Prototype Trial — to be tested and refined.

1

Identify

Objective and value — pay in, or receive.

2

Match & connect

In person, Singapore pilot.

Consent: known relationship, or vetted match
3

Interact

Guided prompts, video or audio — with Storyteller's consent.

  • Depth ladder:    five senses → historical events → personal reflections → humorous/kind legacy momento.
  • Reciprocal vulnerability:    the Story Keeper answers first, briefly, before asking.
Consent: to record
4

Share

Co-create Video Clip — 30–90 seconds, published to the Share Platform.

Consent: to share the Clip
5

Actualize

  • “Best Bowl” — compete for a prize for best Video Clip.
  • “Pass the Bowl” — nominate another Story Keeper for a vibrant community.
  • “Treasures Bowl Jam” — perform show of visual montage and soundscape music.
Consent: separate, for public performance
Treasures for the Person.    Treasures for the World.

We capture video, not journals.

Authentic stories carry clear truth.    Treasures Bowl builds the pathway to wisdom through one-to-one, live video — because more than 80% of people over 85 live with some hearing loss, and expression carries meaning audio alone loses.

We train each Story Keeper to practice presence.

Patient observation builds emotional resilience.    Guided prompts also surface the ancestral foods and habits that carried a family’s wellbeing across generations.

We are for the Common Folk — and we pass the bowl.

Unlike self-serve tools or general-purpose archives, Treasures Bowl is built to bridge dialect and culture, not just capture whatever language happens to be spoken — inclusively, for every diaspora and generation.    It’s designed to offer real livelihood for the Storytellers, Story Keepers, and communities who fill it.

We’re building an archive, not just a keepsake.

Treasures Bowl’s Share Platform will hold the breadth of ancestral wisdom for living consciously alongside the natural world — across genders, ages, and cultures, East and West.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Where Treasures Bowl Sits

From card decks to national archives, most approaches sit at one end or the other.    Treasures Bowl is built where facilitated, trained listening meets a collective, licensable archive.

Card decks Storyworth-type Private ghostwriters MyChinaRoots StoryCorps USC Shoah Foundation Government archives Treasures Bowl SELF-SERVE PRODUCT → FACILITATED RELATIONSHIP / PROGRAM INDIVIDUAL KEEPSAKE → COLLECTIVE / PUBLIC ARCHIVE
Consumer / retail-funded Family / per-project-funded Philanthropy-funded Government-funded Hybrid — testing (Treasures Bowl)
The Singapore Prototype Scoop
This Singapore trial is our template for a viable social enterprise that leverages AI for Good — testing, in real time, the friction between Storyteller and Story Keeper, the tech that might ease it, and the model that sustains it all.    Together, we’re building toward an ecosystem that’s simple, accessible, and fun.
72,800 Singapore citizens aged 85 and older
300 Stories, our pilot goal
Singapore Snapshot

72,800 citizens aged 85 and older call Singapore home today.    Nearly 6 in 10 speak a Chinese dialect — Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese — as their home language, one their own grandchildren often can’t speak back.    And 6 in 10 already live under the same roof as their children: the Story Keeper is often a few steps away, not a plane ride.

Prototype Scoop Timeline

September — Test prototype and validate business model with up to 50 stories.    October to December — Pilot MVP to collect up to 300 stories.    November — Pilot live interactive video and sound show.

Dates are directional and will evolve as the pilot progresses.

For Volunteers who want to Prototype
Story by Family · TB Kin

Ask Your Grandma About Her Grandma

Any family relation, self-guided, no intermediary.    A grandchild or great-grandchild is a priority.

Start with Your Own Family
Story by Community · TB Youth

Ask Your Elders About Their Elders

Non-relative.    Age 19 and below.    Connected and vetted through a school, senior home, or community partner.    We are testing incentives, including “Best Bowl” prizes.

Join as a Community Story Keeper
Story by Community · TB Friend

Volunteer to Listen

Non-relative.    Age 20 and above.    Mission driven.    Institution-vouched.    No incentive.

Join as a Community Friend
For Partners who want to Expand Treasures Bowl
Founder
Treasures Bowl 聚寶盆 Mother and daughter connecting

Mother and daughter connecting — precious and fun. There once was an ahma 阿妈 with tattles,
Of healing food and typhoon rattles,
Her grandkid pressed ‘record’,
Videoed wisdom, not bored,
Now her laughs become family chattels.

April Swando Hu 🔗

Founder & Executive Chair  ·  不忘初心

Oldest sister of five · mother of four · Yale University BSc Electrical Engineering · Stanford MBA · Certified Integral Coach · Chair, Yale International Alliance · Founder, Zigen Fund · 5× Edu-Tech Entrepreneur

Origin of Name

I chose Treasures Bowl 聚寶盆 for its folklore: long ago, the Jade Emperor kept it at the center of his Heavenly Palace, until the mischievous Monkey King kicked it down to Earth — where it went on to enable countless kind deeds by multiplying any good thing placed inside it.

Swando emblem

“Listen to the reed, how it tells a tale, complaining of separation.”

بشنو از نی چون حکایت می‌کند · از جدایی‌ها شکایت می‌کند

— Rumi, Masnavi, Book I

“Know the strength of the masculine, but keep the gentleness of the feminine — and become the valley stream of the world.”

知其雄,守其雌,為天下溪。

— Laozi, Tao Te Ching · 老子,《道德經》

Join the Founding Team

Actively recruiting a Founding CEO, Fractional CFO (financial model, IP structure), and CTO — all mission-aligned, result-bearing roles.

Enquire About Roles
Reach Out
Advisors
Ben Tsiang

Ben Tsiang 🔗

Documentary & Archival Licensing

Suellen Lee

Suellen Lee, PhD 🔗

Senior Clinical Psychologist

Huihan Lie

Huihan Lie 🔗

Founder & CEO, My China Roots

Get in touch

Thank you.

We’ll be in touch soon.