Entrepreneur Gillian Tee has a soft spot for seniors, as the main people who took care of her growing up, besides her mother, were her grandmother and an elderly nanny.
Her late nanny, a Malaysian woman in her 60s, raised her lovingly till she was 10. And in Ms Tee’s teens, her maternal grandmother provided her comfort through turbulent times.
“My grandmother and nanny had a big impact in my life,” said Ms Tee, “Their unconditional care and warmth shaped me to be who I am today.”
Ms Tee, 37, is the co-founder and chief executive of Homage, a start-up that connects professional caregivers with seniors who need help.
Her affinity with the elderly is one of the reasons why the former technology consultant gave up her career in the United States to build her eldercare start-up here. In Silicon Valley, she had co-founded Rocketrip, a successful start-up to reduce travel costs which had raised US$32 million (S$43 million) in funding.
But after 15 years of living abroad, Ms Tee decided to move home in 2016 to be closer to her 71-year-old mother. “I didn’t notice my mother ageing,” she said.
“I wanted to care for her, while making sure she still had her independence and dignity,” added Ms Tee, whose two sisters live abroad.
Intrigued by the way the United States used technology to improve senior care, she decided to explore a similar model.
In 2016, Ms Tee co-founded Homage to make a social impact on Singapore’s ageing landscape. The three-year-old start-up uses an app to connect caregiving healthcare professionals with seniors.
“It is hard to find a trusted caregiver. I wanted to pay it forward, seeing I never had the chance to make sure my nanny was well taken care of as she suffered from bone and breast cancer,” she said.
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Source: The Straits Times, 20 Nov 2019