#20. Davy Cheong and his Values, Passion and Purpose

Our SG60 series is about people who have been shaped by Singapore, and are making a difference in Singapore. These stories also aims to be a channel for individual reflection on what our own values are, and how we discover our passion and strive towards our purpose.

Values are your non-negotiable foundation, passion is about what excites and motivates you, and purpose is your deeper reason for existence. - Harvard Business Review

Wantedly’s mission is to create a world where work drives passion, and whether you are a founder or creator, a leader or a gig worker, a consultant or a teacher, discovering and aligning your values, passion, and purpose will give you the best chance at having a fulfilling career, and more importantly, a meaningful life. With that in place, organisations can achieve their mission, and society and beyond will benefit in the long run. And as a nation, when we reflect on our shared values of multiculturalism, boldness, resilience and openness, we can build upon what drove our prosperity…

SG60’s theme is a refreshed spirit, and by celebrating Singapore’s journey to date, Wantedly is proud to spotlight some of those who have contributed to the past, and will be shaping the next chapter of the Singapore story.

Introducing Davy

Davy Cheong is a Senior Principal Scientist and the director of Singapore Battery Consortium at the Agency of Science Technology and Research (A*STAR). His main interests are in product prototype development, scaling up and commercialization of research outcomes. As a scientist, he co-founded 2 companies. The first was to commercialise a shock absorbing material that can be incorporated into protective apparels and the second was to commercialise an air purification technology. For these efforts in translating research to products, he received the Silver prize for Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Awards in 2012, A*STAR Scientist-Entrepreneur Award in 2014 and OCBC Emerging Enterprise Award in 2022. He was also awarded a National Commendation Award for his contributions in fighting the spread of Covid-19 virus with science and technology during the pandemic.

Davy with his first startup in 2012, image source: https://www.techinasia.com/sofshell

Trident team receiving the “Most Promising Start-Up” award at the Emerging Enterprise Awards in 2022, image source: https://www.a-star.edu.sg/News/a-star-innovate/innovates/innovate/how-a-home-grown-start-up-created-a-next-gen-air-sanitiser

In his own words...

I love singing and had taken part in little competitions in the past. I was also doing Elvis and Nat King Cole impersonations in bars and parties while studying overseas. These days I enjoy listening to my son play the piano and I also dabble with toy photography. My interest largely remained childlike.

1. What are your top 3 values?

• Humility
• Sense of Purpose
• Creativity

2. What keeps you up at night? 

Sometimes, I find my mind racing late at night when I have ideas about how to improve a solution or business, not to mention these late nights also channel my creative outlet. This has definitely kept me up too many nights, but it has also contributed to my work in terms of solving problems for my businesses, or even for society.

On occasion, I also find myself musing till late night with life philosophies and epiphanies. Having experienced a fair bit, I appreciate these self realisations and reflections because it helps me make sense of things, and keeps me grounded with a sense of purpose.

 3. What gets you out of bed in the morning? 

To me, everyday is a new adventure, new things to do, new problems to solve, new people to meet, I am even excited about the things my son or wife are doing for the day.

4. What fills your cup? 

I believe that each of us has a role to play and for me it is creating something that will improve the lives of people. Achieving small successes in this endeavour fills my cup.

5. In your current season, how do you define impact and success? What will it take for that to be realised? 

Success means a sense of unshakable happiness and good health. Impact is knowing that my presence made a positive difference to my family, community, country and the world.

What I hope to strive for is to have persistence, to keep an open mind and to always have a willingness to learn.

6. Please leave us with your advice for scientist-entrepreneurs. 

It is a whole new world of opportunities when we take our technology to market. I hope more scientists will aspire to do so and look at their work through the lens of a scientist-entrepreneur. Seeing your work improve the lives of others is one of the greatest satisfaction for the person who gave birth to the idea. And the process of overcoming the problems to make your idea work as a product or service is the most humbling and affirming life lesson. I gained tremendously from the journey intellectually, spiritually and in a modest sense financially and I strongly promote this path to future scientists with entrepreneurial dreams.

If you are interested to exchange more, you can reach out to me at Davy_cheong@imre.a-star.edu.sg!

Introducing The World’s Most Effective Air Purifier.

AirDome™ is developed in collaboration with A*STAR, Singapore’s top research lab. Dr. Davy Cheong and team also got the hard science to prove it too.

You can make your air healthy today, and enjoy $30 off (non-promotion items) with the code Andrewtan30.

Once again, in celebration of SG60, let us strive to be bolder and kinder to one another, for Singapore and ourselves.

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