In the humid precision of Singapore, a nation where efficiency is culture and harmony is policy, something quietly revolutionary is happening. It isn’t another tech startup or smart city experiment. It’s human engineering at its most profound: a blueprint for thriving in the “third act” of life.
At the centre of it all stands Professor Virginia Cha, academic director of the Distinguished Senior Fellowship Program (DSFP) at the National University of Singapore. Her philosophy underpins not just her teaching, but the very design of a new way to live, one that turns aging from a decline into a design.
Engineering the Blue Zone
Singapore, recently recognized as the world’s sixth Blue Zone, regions where people live the longest and healthiest, is unique. It didn’t happen by chance. “It’s an engineered Blue Zone,” says Cha. “We import 95% of our food. So this isn’t a natural phenomenon. It’s the outcome of deliberate design, policies ensuring clean air, excellent healthcare, and social cohesion.”
Where longevity elsewhere might be an accident of geography or genetics, Singapore’s is a system. “Sixty percent of health comes from social behaviour and environment,” she explains. “Thirty percent from genetics. Ten percent from healthcare. Singapore controls the seventy percent that matters most.”
This control, (or rather, care), has birthed a “super-aged society” in record time. By 2030, nearly one-third of Singaporeans will be over 65. But here’s the twist: they’re not just living longer; they’re living better. The city’s health span, the years spent in good health, is among the highest in the world.
Still, Cha believes longevity without purpose is only half the story. “If we retire at sixty-five but live to a hundred, what happens to the other thirty-five years?” she asks. “Play golf? Drink kopi? That’s not thriving.”
From Aging to Thriving
Cha’s solution was simple, and radical. Create a fellowship for the “third transition” of life: not education for employment, not degrees for advancement, but learning for purpose.
The DSFP gathers men and women in their 50s, 60s, and beyond, executives, professionals, thinkers, and throws them into what Cha calls a “buffet of random learning.” History. Anthropology. Religion. Philosophy. Health sciences. Art. “It’s not structured,” she laughs. “Because life isn’t. It’s called exploration for a reason.”
This randomness is deliberate. By removing the subjects of business and finance, “the languages of success”, Cha creates space for a new kind of curiosity. “If you take away the conventional measures of achievement, people can rediscover what truly matters.”
The fellowship runs for 13 weeks, including exploration, formal learning and fieldwork. Running throughout is a Purpose Project, where each fellow designs an initiative that expresses their renewed sense of meaning.
But something unexpected emerged. “The deep friendships,” Cha says, eyes lighting up. “They’re like children. Laughing, joking, genuinely caring for one another. People come for learning and leave with belonging.”
The Purpose Project: Wisdom in Motion
Each fellow champions a project that gives form to their new insights. There’s one on dementia awareness, another on supporting parents of children with autism. One team is exploring financial literacy for retirees through friendly AI avatars. Others are rethinking integration for new immigrants, or reframing longevity around joy rather than health.
One group has even created a fund, not for undergraduates but for future fellows, to finance future purpose projects. “They want this program to last,” Cha says, smiling. “That’s when I knew we’d built something real.”
The fellowship’s outcomes can’t be graded, but they’re deeply visible. Especially in the men. “I noticed something fascinating,” she says. “After two months, the male fellows [men make up about seventy percent of the cohort] walk differently. They’re lighter, more animated, more alive.”
It’s not surprising. The DSFP, at its core, restores what many men lose in midlife: a sense of relevance. As work fades, purpose often does too. Cha’s fellowship reconnects them not just to knowledge, but to contribution.
Philosophy by Design
Behind Cha’s laughter and entrepreneurial energy lies a quietly profound philosophical architecture, one drawn from Buddhist thought. She explains it through three Chinese ideas:
- Kan Po (看破) — to see deeply.
Fellows learn across disciplines to understand the deeper patterns behind the world. The “why” beneath the “what.” “When you can see deeply,” she says, “you stop reacting to life. You start understanding it.” - Fang Xia (放下) — to let go.
This is the decision to release the conventional scripts (status, title, wealth) that no longer serve. “That’s why I excluded business and finance from the curriculum,” Cha admits. “It’s time to let those measures go. They block bigger purpose.” - Zi Zai (自在) — to be free.
Freedom, in this sense, isn’t rebellion. It’s authenticity. “We begin the program with everyone sharing their origin story. Not their LinkedIn profile, but their childhood, their real story. It builds psychological safety, and that’s freedom.”
These three principles form the invisible skeleton of the DSFP. “I’ve never told anyone this,” Cha confides, “but the entire program … the randomness, the openness, the community … it’s built on these ideas.”
The Entrepreneur as Philosopher
It’s no coincidence that Cha’s approach feels more like a startup than a syllabus. Before academia, she was a tech entrepreneur across Singapore, China, and the US. She earned her PhD in her 50s, proof that reinvention isn’t bound by age.
“When I couldn’t find the kind of learning I wanted, classes in philosophy, anthropology, religion. I thought: if the product doesn’t exist, build it. That’s what entrepreneurs do.”
Her startup mindset made DSFP possible in record time: just 18 months from idea to launch, “sonic speed for a university,” she laughs. Convincing the university president was easy. Convincing professors to teach? Less so. “You can’t make professors do anything,” she says. “Some didn’t even answer my emails. I had to stalk them through my students.”
Persistence won. Twenty-one fellows signed up for the inaugural cohort. And the rest, as they say, is philosophy.
Aging as Freedom
Perhaps the most refreshing part of Cha’s worldview is her joy in aging itself.
“It’s great to be old,” she says, eyes twinkling. “Freedom is a wonderful thing. The older you get, the freer you become. Free from what others think your agenda is.”
This unburdening is at the heart of DSFP. It’s not just about lifelong learning. It’s about lifelong liberation. “At my age, I don’t need to prove anything. I can just be,” she says. “That’s thriving.”
Lessons in Designing a Life
The DSFP’s impact ripples far beyond the classroom. It challenges the modern assumption that the purpose of learning ends with employment. Here, learning becomes a vehicle for re-humanising success.
At the bachelor’s level, education prepares us for work. At the master’s level, it advances us in work. At the fellowship level, as Cha envisions it, education prepares us beyond work and to contribute meaningfully to others and to ourselves.
She puts it simply: “When you help others, you help yourself.” There’s a subtle power in that sentence. It’s not about service as sacrifice, but as joy. The joy
of still mattering, of being useful, of being seen. It’s a message we hope reverberates with future DSFP.
Epilogue: The Freedom of Not Letting Go (Yet)
When asked what her 90-year-old self might say to her 65-year-old self, Cha laughs. “Maybe she’d say, you should have let go sooner. But I’m not ready yet. Being busy gives me joy. I’m not letting go.”
There’s something deeply human in that refusal, not of age, but of inertia. The philosopher still in motion. The entrepreneur still building. The teacher still learning.
And perhaps that’s the ultimate lesson of the Distinguished Senior Fellowship Program, and of Professor Virginia Cha herself: Longevity isn’t just about living longer. It’s about staying awake.
Staying curious.
Staying human.
That’s the real design behind thriving.
If you’re reading this, Prof Cha, thank you for your vision and leadership. And for everyone else, please do me a favour. Just one small thing, OK?
Don’t let the old man in.
Not just yet.
Not today.
