(bright music) (spirited music) (spirited music continues) - "Eye on Education."

I'm Fred Martino.

STEM education, that's science, technology, engineering, and math, is a major focus across the globe.

On a previous episode, we talked with Harvey Henson.

He's the director of the STEM Education Research Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

You can find that program at wsiu.org.

Today, we will be speaking with SIU alumnus, Henry Ong.

He is the president of Scholastic Trust Singapore, which provides scholarships to SIU students.

And we have two of those students with us now.

I am so honored to welcome Michael Pranoto of Indonesia and Rahilly Machado of Brazil.

Thank you both for being with us, guys.

- Of course.

- Thank you so much.

- Good to have you here.

I wanna start with both of you just answering the question to tell our audience a little bit about your home countries and your decision to come to Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Michael, I'm gonna start with you.

- Well, I am from Indonesia.

The place is quite humid, since it is in the middle of the line of the... Well, yeah.

So I- - You'll feel at home here 'cause we have a lot of humidity here, too.

- Yeah, I feel at home here.

(Fred laughs) - Can feel it right now, right?

- Because I thought this place will be a lot more colder, but here I am, and my expectations were really betrayed.

So this place is really like my home back in Indonesia.

- It'll be much cooler in the wintertime.

- Of course.

- Much cooler.

But tell me, why did you choose SIU Carbondale?

- Well, as of why I chose SIU Carbondale, I plan to major in mathematics and data science.

So in America, their technology is far more, well, advanced than most parts of the world, so that is the first reason I came here.

The second is that I received a scholarship from Mr. Henry Ong and the Scholastic Trust Singapore themselves in SIU.

Yeah.

- Outstanding, yes.

It's fabulous.

You both got scholarships and I'm so thrilled for both of you.

Congratulations to both of you on that.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Let's hear a little bit about Brazil and how you chose SIU Carbondale, Rahilly.

- Okay, so yeah, I'm from Brazil, and they're a big place, some cold regions, but where I live, the weather is very unstable but really hot all along the year.

So I was expecting to come here and get a really, really cold place, but no.

(laughs) (Fred laughs) - [Fred] That's right.

- It's really warm.

- [Fred] It'll be cooler in the winter again.

- I hope so, (chuckles) yeah.

- Yeah, yeah, good.

- But well, I chose SIU Carbondale because, first, I wanted a small-town college to be part of a community and to learn really next to my peers, really next to my professors.

So I figured out that a small town like Carbondale would be a really good place to develop this community aspect.

- Yeah.

- And also, because I received the Dr. Jared Dorn Scholarship, so yeah, pretty much.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- As I mentioned, both of you received that scholarship.

We're gonna talk to Henry Ong coming up, the founder of Scholastic Trust Singapore, providing the scholarship.

Tell me how that shaped your journey to SIU.

- Well, my journey to SIU wouldn't be possible without that scholarship.

My family wouldn't have the conditions to pay for that.

Actually, I'm a first gen of my scholarship to go to the college.

- First-generation college student.

- Yeah, first-generation college student.

And so it wouldn't be possible for my family to pay here.

And actually, the dollar is very high for Brazil to pay, so even worse.

And the scholarship, the funding from Scholastic Trust, really helped me to get here.

And also, I'm receiving support from SIMCC to pay for my housing and living expenses in general, so I'm here because of them.

- Outstanding.

Michael, how about you?

How much of an impact did this have?

- Well, it had a really big impact on me.

So at first, I was trying to apply for a lot of universities, and as you can see, well, most of them didn't get accepted.

And I tried to apply for this since I was in SIMCC and IGHS.

So I applied and, apparently, I got accepted.

So I was really happy when I got this since the conversion from the Indonesian currency, rupiah, to American dollars is really high, so it is almost impossible for me and my family to afford.

And after receiving the scholarship, I was so surprised.

I was so happy and I immediately took it.

- Well, we're happy for you.

And I know both of you will be working as student research assistants in the STEM Education Research Center that I mentioned at the top of the show.

Michael, let's start with you.

Tell me about the topics you're interested in exploring.

- As I said before, I plan to major in data science and mathematics.

So I'll be talking about mathematics first.

In mathematics, since I was the third grade, I have been taking and participating in a lot of mathematics olympiads.

And until now, I have joined a lot of them.

For example, getting a gold medal four times consecutively, starting from 2020 in American Math Olympiad, and also getting a perfect score in CSMO 2023.

- That is amazing, amazing.

- Yup.

- Rahilly, how about you?

What topics are you most interested in?

- Well, it's a great pleasure to be a research assistant at the STEM Research Center.

And in the beginning, it will be an honor to help Dr. Henson and all the professionals involved with the SIMCC partnership in developing the American Math Olympiad, which I'm a medalist, too, two gold medals.

So it's really crazy because, some days ago, I was participating in it, train it, and "Oh, my God, let's try this exam."

And now I'm helping to help with the exam and provide everything.

So it's a really big change.

And inside the research center, I plan to learn more about how researchers work and what they do.

And maybe that will shape my career and shape the way I take college.

And maybe I can even propose some research study.

- Tell me about your passion for mathematics.

Where did that come from?

- Well, actually, I always love numbers because I can understand them.

Unlike other sciences, numbers are exact, so I can understand that.

I'm not a mathematics major.

I will be taking computer engineering.

- [Fred] Ah.

- Yeah, so- - We use math in so much in the STEM fields.

- Yeah, so I can understand math, and I can understand it so deeply that I can apply it to other things like computer engineering.

We build computers based on the math we know.

So that's what I'm passionate about.

- You're choosing a good field, that's for sure.

One thing that we depend on constantly, computer science.

It's amazing.

How about you and your interest and passion for mathematics?

- Well, as I said before, I have been interested since the third grade.

And I- - Third grade?

- Yes, and I plan to spread this passion amongst others.

So like- - So you wanna teach?

- Not teaching directly.

However, in this STEM Center, as Rahilly said, me and Rahilly will be conducting the American Math Olympiad.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- We'll talk about that.

What are your long-term career goals and how your education will help with that?

- Well, I plan to take mathematics and data science.

The data science is, well, in that major, I will be scanning datas, for example, sales, and then predict what will happen to such data in the future.

For example, will it rise or will it drop?

And also- - So for a career, you wanna work in data science.

- [Michael] Yes.

- So important and such a growing field as well.

We have, thanks to computers, we have so much more data now about everything that we do or don't do in business and in life.

You mentioned, Rahilly, computer science.

Tell me about your long-term career goals, what you wanna do with that computer science field.

- Okay, actually, computer engineering, but oh, almost the same, right?

So my career goals, in the short term, finish college and maybe apply to a big company.

And after that, my plans are really to use technology, maybe build technologies to help people around the world with no conditions maybe to study, people who has no conditions to have access to good food.

My plans is to use technology to help them, to help the world be better.

- And the way that you would do that, when you say that you wanna work in computer engineering, is building better computers, is that right?

Is that a good way to put it?

- Not necessarily computers, but technologies.

- Software.

Any kinda technology.

- Any kind of technologies that can help people.

- So any kinda technology that uses computers.

- Yeah.

- Outstanding.

So interesting.

And there is so much more that we're hearing about technology and the way that it can be used.

Believe it or not, we only have a few minutes left, but let's end there.

What a great way to end.

I'll start with you, Rahilly, to talk about how you see ways potentially that your education, your experiences that you're gonna have at SIU over the next few years, might make an impact in your home country of Brazil and maybe globally.

- Well, Brazil is a developing country and the education system needs to be improved a lot.

So I hope that me being here, having experiences here, I can reflect that to my community, to the people I left in Brazil and help them achieve more educational goals and get more success.

- How does your family feel about this?

- Oh, they are so proud.

My mom cries a lot because she misses me.

(Fred laughs) I miss her.

- Yeah.

- I miss my family, but they're very proud.

I'm a first gen, so it's a very proud... All my family is very proud of me.

- Yeah.

How about your family, Michael?

- Oh, they are definitely going to really miss me.

I will also really miss them since I have- - First time probably for both of you being away from home for a long time.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so how about you, Michael, your thoughts on how your education, your experiences that you'll have here at SIU Carbondale over the next few years, how that might help your home country of Indonesia and maybe the world?

- My experiences and studies here will be really beneficial for me in the future.

For example, learning data science can help me predict a little of the future and maybe create countermeasures to use against it in order to not plummet.

And also, take advantage of the rise in order to make my home country a little better, at the very least, maybe improving their economies and such.

- So wonderful.

I am so proud of both of you and so grateful to both of you for joining us on this program.

The very best of luck to you in your education.

You've already got the right shirt there.

(laughs) - Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much for having us here.

- Thank you very much, sir.

(upbeat pop music) - We continue our conversation now.

I am so honored and pleased to have with us Henry Ong.

He is an SIU alumnus and president-founder of the Scholastic Trust Singapore, which, as I said earlier, provides scholarships to SIU students.

Henry, thank you so much for being here.

- Sure.

Oh, thank you, Fred, for having me on your program.

- It must have felt great to see those young men, knowing you and your work has made it possible for them to come- - Yeah.

- To SIU Carbondale.

- Yes.

Yeah, well, it's a fulfillment of a dream.

When I first came to SIU in 1982, I was very, very fortunate.

I had many mentors that supported me through my journey.

And I had a outstanding education at Southern Illinois.

I went on to an outstanding career at Whirlpool Corporation.

So I've always been very thankful for those early years at SIU.

And so seeing them out here being able to fulfill their dreams of a university education is something very, very fulfilling to me.

- So this experience- - Mm-hmm.

- Coming to school here, was part of, I assume, then the motivation for you to establish the Scholastic Trust.

- Yeah.

- Tell me about that.

- Well, I never expected to come to university, okay?

When I was in high school, I was a champion sportsman.

I was a school champion athlete.

I was an athletics captain.

I was a Taekwondo black belt.

And I had a fantastic time in the army serving my national service.

And so I expected to be a high school PE teacher.

And I had six vocations when I was in the military, all focused on PE activities.

And so at that point, that basically helped me to decide that I didn't want to continue to be a PE teacher.

And hence, to a twist of fate, I managed to get to university.

And so I had never planned to be here.

But through that twist, (Fred chuckles) I was here.

And so very, very thankful for that opportunity, yeah.

- So take me inside of that.

I mean, you not only had the bravery and an incredible adventuresome spirit to come to another country.

- Yeah.

- But you also didn't know your whole life you were gonna even go to college.

- Yes, correct.

- So tell me about that.

- Well- - Take me back.

- I came from a poor family, so that's why I never expected to be able to afford, like Rahilly.

I never expected to be able to afford to come to university.

But through a twist of fate, my eldest sister, who was advising me to continue my acquiring more education, she died.

And then when she died, my brother-in-law came to me and basically told me and said, "Henry, your sister really wanted for you to go to school."

And so he supported me in my education.

So- - So that's how it happened.

- And that's how it happened.

- Oh, my goodness.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Well, tell me about how you select the students who receive the scholarships and grants, the qualities that you're looking for when you make an award.

- Okay, yup.

So what happened in the last 20 years was I stumbled upon academic competitions.

So I first started running math olympiad competitions.

And then from there, over the years, we've added in science olympiad, informatics olympiad, and art competition.

And so I have the fortune of basically working with students.

Many of them start with me as average students.

And over a period of six months to three years, I transform them into high achievers.

And so both Rahilly and Michael are some of our top students.

Michael, as you heard, is a perfect scorer in a high-level academic competition that is a very high level of achievement.

And both of them are all, at one point, our overall champions in either SIMO, the Singapore International Math Olympiad challenge, or in the STEAM AHEAD Global Finals that I run every year.

So this year, we're bringing it from Asia to Istanbul in Turkiye.

So I have developed the capability of basically providing students with a very nice pathway.

And along the way, I've created a lot of very powerful systems and opportunities for them where they can prove themselves.

And I'm taking the best of the best here to SIU.

- [Fred] That is fabulous.

- Yeah.

- And I know that you work closely with the STEM Education Research Center- - Yeah.

- Where your scholarship recipients will be working.

- Yeah.

- The STEM Education Research Center here at SIU Carbondale is developing the math questions- - Yeah.

- For what you mentioned, the American Mathematics Olympiad.

I was amazed at this, that it's expected that it will include 40,000 students from 47 countries, including the US.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Why is this so important to have a competition like this?

- Okay, so basically, the math competitions, for very long time, in fact, it started probably back in the '50s from, if I remember and my statistics correctly, started in Romania, okay, where they started introducing math competitions.

And among most of all the academic competitions, math was probably the easiest to curate and create.

And so these give us- - Why was it the easiest?

'Cause there's a right and wrong answer?

Is that why?

- Yeah, right and wrong.

- Yeah, okay.

- Yeah, right and wrong answers.

Very clearly.

- That was interesting earlier.

- Yeah.

- To hear that from them.

- Very clearly, you can- - Yeah.

- Determine the winners.

And then the other interesting thing is that what I really love about how they've created the math olympiad is that there are actually a lot of tricks in math olympiad that they have developed that we don't teach in our regular school curriculum.

- Mm.

- And so that's how I've been able to harness the power of the math olympiads to excite the students to where from being just a normal kid, they are able to transform themselves through the magic of the math olympiad into getting more interested in the content.

And then slowly, like what you've seen with Michael and Rahilly, built themselves out to be very strong candidates for scholarships.

Yeah.

- And I love how both of them express so beautifully they wanna give back.

- Yes.

- Now that they've had this experience- - Yeah, yeah.

- They wanna give back to the world.

- [Henry] Yeah.

- It excites me for another reason because, like many students, math was not my favorite- - Yeah.

- Subject.

I wasn't really naturally talented in math.

- Yeah.

- I was more into the words, as you might imagine- - Mm-hmm, yup, yup.

- Than in the numbers.

- Mm-hmm.

- I became better, though.

And I think a competition probably encourages students who might need to develop skills, too, right?

- Yes, correct, correct.

So there are many opportunities.

I know I really love what the STEM Research Center, Dr. Bu, who we are working with- - Mm-hmm.

- To cooperate on creating the American Math Olympiad.

So he has a similar passion- - [Fred] Yeah.

- Like what I do, where he's really using games to help kids puzzle things out, you know?

- Mm-hmm.

- And so one of the key pieces of work that I did very early on, way back 15, 20 years ago, was I actually developed a lot of interesting math games, board and card games, that really spur the children into building up an interest and developing their strengths and skills in mathematics that help to overcome that fear.

- [Fred] Yeah.

- And so that's why I say that I'm able to transform average students into high achievers.

- Oh, that's so exciting.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You also honor those top contest winners by bringing them into the International Junior Honor Society- - Yeah.

- And hosting the Young Achievers Leadership Academy.

- Yup, yup.

- Tell me how those initiatives help foster STEM education.

- Well, first of all, I was very fortunate during my time at SIU, Dr. Jared Dorn, then the director of CIE, Center for International Education, was my host family and mentor.

And so one of the things that he encouraged me to do was he made me the vice president of Phi Kappa Phi.

And that really opened my eyes up to the opportunities available in the Honor Society and so on.

The first things, when I started my nonprofit, I wanted to do was to really open up this opportunity.

And so the International Junior Honor Society that I created, I made it basically a free membership for all students.

So instead of having to pay 50 to $500 a year, which is happening in America, I brought it globally and I gave it for free.

- Mm.

- And then the next thing I wanted to do then was I wanted to build these young leaders, very similar to what we are doing with the Rotary and the Lions, where, unfortunately, they are only brought in after they succeed in their career to give back to the society.

So I wanted to start young.

- Yeah.

- So hence, I created the YALA camp, like we call it, where we provide them with a five-day immersive leadership training based on the Greenleaf servant-leadership concept.

And years after I left SIU, I discovered Bucky, Buckminster Fuller, who was a architect professor here at SIU when I was here.

Unfortunately, I think by the time I came here in '82, he had already left SIU.

- [Fred] Uh-huh.

- But I learned about his principles along with what my mentor, Marshall Thurber, learned from Buckminster, sorry, from Edwards Deming, the guru who went to Japan.

So they taught me about the concept of leaders give, givers get.

And so when I created the camp, I was really trying to transfer a lot of these thinking- - Yeah.

- To these kids so that they can really start thinking about giving back to their local and global communities, making them ideal candidates for scholarships because universities are looking for people who are willing to give back to their communities.

- It's such an inspiration- - Yeah.

- And the work that you're doing.

We only have about two minutes left.

- Yeah.

- And I wanted to give you a chance to wrap up by noting that your organization also focuses on training teachers.

- Yeah.

- They show them how to use academic assessment to identify and then nurture talent.

- Yeah.

- Quickly, if you can talk about that.

- Well, one of the biggest needs in many developing countries is that professional development training, PD training, is really lacking.

And that's one of the major reasons why many of these developing countries are still developing because their teachers do not have the skill set to be able to use the massive data that currently we are developing through our competitions.

So we are basically a data gold mine, you know, where teachers can access information that could transform their learning.

And that's what we're trying to provide to teachers.

And so when I met Chancellor Lane, Austin, yesterday, I had told him that I'm gonna try and bring in 500 students in SIU within the next five years.

And immediately, he asked me, "What do you need me to help you on?"

So I told him, I said, "I need you to give me access to online teacher training, okay?

And I'm also hoping to equip many more of our students, capable students from around the world, with more preparatory course for university education, so that they can speed up their time at university and achieve even much more."

So that's what we're hoping to be able to achieve here at SIU with all of you helping us.

- Well, it has been such an interesting conversation today- - Yeah.

- And such an honor to meet you.

- Yeah.

- And thank you for the work you do.

- Okay, thank you for giving us this opportunity to share with your audience about the work that we are doing, Fred.

Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- Yeah.

- And thank you for joining us at home.

Have a great week.

(spirited music)