Danutcha Catriona Singh
2024-2025 Columbia University Scholar
Malaysia
Managing Director, SOLS Foundation
Elevating Malaysia’s lower income groups through educational training and employment support initiatives, as well as energy access for off-grid Indigenous communities.
Danutcha Singh is the Managing Director of the SOLS Foundation, an organization committed to growing Malaysia’s middle class through cross-sector career preparedness training, especially for low-income and Orang Asli (Indigenous peoples) communities. Starting at SOLS as a volunteer teacher 15-years ago, Danutcha now steers education initiatives that bridge the gap to employment, including Skills Hub, which has conducted locally tailored skills training workshops benefiting 90,000 individuals, and the Solar Academy, which has prepared over 100 youth—50% being indigenous—for careers in green energy. Graduates of Solar Academy have gone on to bring light to 1,423 residential homes and 2,387 indigenous homes in the past two years. Increasing their scope, she has established a strategic partnership with HP and Malaysia’s Ministry of Youth and Sports to pioneer a youth fellowship program. Soon transitioning to the role of CEO, Danutcha wants to use her time as a Scholar to develop a comprehensive strategy for SOLS, streamlining its programs and teams to operate toward a singular approach with the goal of scaling up.
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