Singapore Prototype Scoop — 6 Months ↓

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

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

A video-first platform connecting one Storyteller to one Listener.

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 before 1940
2 wks A language disappears
Get Involved Meet the Founder ↓
Why Now?
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.    These stories of everyday lives are rarely recorded:    the grandmother who ran a market stall, the grandfather who rebuilt after the war.    We have five years to connect with, and hear from, the 70 million who are still here.

Preferably by video recording of their voice, gesture, and even pauses — especially because more than 80% of people over 85 have some hearing loss.    Urgency because a living language disappears every two weeks.

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

What is Treasures Bowl?

What if every person’s wisdom could be passed on?    Treasures Bowl reduces whatever stands in the way of sharing it — language, hearing, distance, or anything else.    Starting with our elders, it pairs a Storyteller with a Listener for one real, video conversation that grows into a living archive of wisdom for future generations.

Each conversation is guided through vetting and prompts that make story sharing safe and easier.    The device-agnostic ecosystem offers a meaningful reward for the Listener's time.    All content is recorded permission-first and consent-only, revocable throughout, and owned by the Storyteller and Listener.

聽

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.  Family skips this step.

Consent: known relationship, or vetted match
3

Interact

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

Consent: to record
4

Share

Co-create Video Clip — 30–90 seconds.

Consent: to share the Clip
5

Actualize

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

We capture video, not journals.

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

We train each Listener to practice presence.

Patient observation builds emotional resilience.    Our guided prompts also surface the ancestral foods and habits that carried a family’s physical 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 stories in whatever language happens to be spoken.    Together, we practice loving kindness, inclusively for every diaspora, every generation.    Treasures Bowl is designed to offer real livelihood for the Storytellers, Listeners, and communities who fill it.

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

Treasures Bowl will hold the breadth and depth 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)
Now – December 2026
The Singapore Prototype Scoop
The purpose of this trial in Singapore is to create a template of a viable social enterprise, one that also leverages AI for Good.    We will test, in real time, the friction points between Storyteller and Listener, the tech solutions that might reduce them, and the social enterprise model that sustains it all.    Together, this builds toward an ecosystem that is 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 of them speak a Chinese dialect — Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese — as their home language, a layer of language and memory their own grandchildren often can’t speak back to them.    And 6 in 10 already live under the same roof as their children — the listener is often only a few steps away, not a plane ride away.

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 Listener
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
Corporate Sponsors

Sponsor the Bowl Jam

Named sponsorship of Treasures Bowl Jam’s visual montage and live soundscape show.

Discuss Sponsorship
Philanthropic Partners

Fund the Mission

Grants, in-kind support, and sponsorship — for funders who want these stories preserved.

Explore Partnership
Technology Partners

Build the Tools

From archive infrastructure to wearable translation and hearing-assist devices — help us build the technology that lets every Storyteller be heard, in their own words, their own tongue.

Explore Technology Partnership
TB Bowl Circle

Anchor a Community

Bring Treasures Bowl to your own community once our Singapore Pilot concludes.    New ‘Bowl Circle’ terms confirmed post-Scoop.

Express Interest
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 because I love the folklore behind it.    Long, long time ago, the Jade Emperor kept the Treasures Bowl at the center of his Heavenly Palace.    The mischievous Monkey King kicked it down to Earth.    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

Get in touch

Thank you.

We’ll be in touch soon.