Social Entrepreneur, Founder, STEAM Educator
Yen Siow completed her Master of Teaching degree and Economics degree at Monash University Australia. From 2007 to 2015 Yen worked at Swinburne University of Technology as the Business Development and Special Projects Coordinator for Digital Frontiers. She has worked in various positions as a Social Entrepreneur, STEM Teacher with the United Nations women in STEM (Singapore), as a Humanitarian Ambassador and Foundations Scholarship Manager for Caulfield Grammar School and as the Digital Literacy Manager for the Father Bob Maguire Foundation (supporting low socio economic communities who face barriers to accessing education and technology).
In the past 8 years Yen has focused her attention on building opportunities for communities that are displaced by conflict to further their education with outreach projects in STEAM education through SMART Osvita (a Ukriane and Canadian partnered NGO with Monash University), with Cahaya Surya Bakti School (Education for Rohingya refugees) and with crisis shelters in South East Asia. She is passionate about providing equal access and opportunity for students to learn STEAM subjects in a hands on fun way and works with special needs children, communities from displaced backgrounds, women and children affected by domestic violence and for Indigenous communities.
One of the most innovative projects Yen has worked on was the RoboBus project where she retro fitted an old bus to transform it into a mobile STEM classroom. The bus was driven to various schools and community centres as an outreach education project, impacting over 2000 people in Melbourne for STEM education. As the founder of the Social Enterprise “Discovering without Borders” www.d-w-b.org Yen has been providing online and in person workshops for a range of communities in South East Asia, the Ukraine, Afghanistan and Australia. Her work has been recognised at the 50 years anniversary celebrations by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore and at Facebook now Meta headquartered in Singapore.
In 2024 she was the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni award for the Faculty of Education at Monash University and has been in various panel guest speaking roles for International Women’s Day, the Global Educational Leadership Conference Singapore and for the Future Women’s leaders forum.