Performance has been in Nathania Ong’s blood since young, when she sang at church as a pre-teen. Now, her on-stage presence lasts long after the curtain has fallen—the true sign of an immaculate professional.

Like most local creatives, Ong understands that the road to stardom is often paved with disappointment. After bouncing between applications and rejections—and a year at Lasalle College of the Arts—she finally attended London’s Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. And the rest is history. The same year she graduated, Ong made her West End debut as Jenna Rolan in Be More Chill. Shortly after, she was cast as Éponine in the historic musical Les Misérables, a role that she recently reprised in the play’s 40th-year anniversary world tour.

To discover the work of Dr Chen Shiling is to realise with humility that there are always more voices to be heard. Dr Chen was 17 when she first volunteered with MINDS, coming face-to-face with the medical inequities of adults with intellectual disabilities (IDs). People whose medical needs—because of challenges in communication and expression, among others— were not being met by the broader healthcare system. She quit her job as a doctor at a public hospital to found Happee Hearts Movement in 2014, which advocates for the healthcare needs of this underrepresented group.

After more than a decade knocking on doors and championing the cause to the healthcare community, Dr Chen has reached significant milestones. Happee Hearts Movement was registered as a charity in 2022 and accredited as an Institution of a Public Character (IPC); and in 2023 it opened IDHealth, the first community-based healthcare service for people with ID in Singapore. To date, the IDHealth clinic service has benefited about 500 people with ID and over 1,000 caregivers. This year, there are plans for palliative and dementia care services as well as the development of an ID practitioner course to broaden the cause’s reach.

The sport of fencing, like Singapore, is on the small side of things—but no less mighty for it. If you have doubts, just look to Amita Berthier. A young fencer in her prime, she made her name in university and has only grown from strength to strength since.

Berthier is a shining example of what it looks like when hard work meets talent. When she attended the University of Notre Dame, she won four NCAA Fencing Championship models. After graduating, she doubled down on her passion, becoming the first Singaporean fencer to qualify for the Olympics. Most recently, she added two more gold medals in individual and team foil at last year’s Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.