Retiree running charity given first ST Singaporean of the Year international impact award

SINGAPORE – As a former entrepreneur and wealthy retiree, Mr Robert Kee could easily choose to donate money to selected charities.

But he actually decided to run one.

Mr Kee has, over the years, cared for abandoned kids by setting up children’s homes, and built houses, toilets and water filtration systems in Cambodia and Nepal through his charity Operation Hope Foundation (OHF).

As its unpaid executive chairman, the 77-year-old does not take any money from the organisation, which has spent more than $8 million on projects to help thousands in these two countries over two decades.

He believes charity work is not about giving funds “(like) Santa Claus”, but identifying real needs and figuring out how to address them.

On March 19, Mr Kee won The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year (International Impact) award, which honours a Singaporean or local organisation that has made a positive impact outside of Singapore.

“We’ve just been plodding along year after year, solving problems one after another. We never think of all these things (like awards),” he said in an interview at his Holland Road home.

The accolade was one of two new ones introduced at the 2025 iteration of ST’s Singaporean of the Year. The original award, which is in its 11th year, recognises a Singaporean or group of citizens that has made a significant contribution to society.

Dr Chen Shiling, 44, founder of Happee Hearts Movement, which runs Singapore’s first clinic for people with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers, was crowned ST Singaporean of the Year.

Gymnast Amanda Yap, 16, won the other new accolade – ST Young Singaporean of the Year – which seeks to recognise a Singaporean under 18 who has shown courage, compassion, empathy, kindness or a spirit of service, and has made a positive impact among peers.

The awards are organised by ST and presented by UBS Singapore. The official airline partner is Singapore Airlines, and the global hotel partner is Millennium Hotels and Resorts.

Ground realities

Mr Kee, who received a trophy and a $20,000 cash prize at the award ceremony at Temasek Shophouse, founded computer networking company Radac in the 1980s.

He subsequently sold it for a sizeable sum before joining his wife Susan Ho’s company, Applied Digital System.

The father of three, who lives in a Balinese-style property with a swimming pool, could have settled comfortably into retirement in his late 40s. But he could not sit still.

A 1995 documentary on child prostitution in Cambodia disturbed him deeply. At the time, he was doing charity work abroad for the Lions Club of Singapore and the Methodist Church.

To understand ground realities better, Mr Kee spent two years travelling monthly between Singapore and Cambodia. He walked on roads with no street lights and met children who ate leftovers.

The philanthropist also donated to several overseas charities, but felt uneasy over the lack of information about how the money was used.

“So I said, okay, the only way is to run my own NGO (non-governmental organisation),” he said.

With two former university mates – Mr Ling Swee Chan and Mr Ong Lin – Mr Kee registered OHF in Singapore in 2001. Mr Ling died in 2014 while Mr Ong stepped down in 2025.

In 2002, Mr Kee bought a villa in Prey Veng, a province east of Phnom Penh, for US$60,000, and converted it into a home for 120 abandoned and impoverished children.

He called it Hope Village.

Mr Kee personally monitored the construction process and hired staff. Starting from scratch was tough, but he said: “When you’re full of passion, you don’t see all the hardship.”

Subsequently, OHF built a similar children’s home in Nepal, which houses about 50 children.

Mr Kee, whom the children call “grandpa”, visits both countries several times per year.

He chose to serve people overseas instead of in Singapore, as he said his gift is in tackling problems that arise from structural poverty.

“They are poor not because they drink, gamble or take drugs, but because there’s just no opportunity,” he said of the impoverished in Cambodia.

Many children he helped have since graduated and found jobs. Beaming, Mr Kee said one of them, a Nepali woman in her 20s who had grown up in the home since she was six, will become a medical doctor in September.

They express their gratitude in various ways. On a wall in his Singapore home hangs a portrait pieced with coloured rice grains, given by Hope Village’s alumni in 2022.

Running a tight ship

Mr Kee runs a tight ship as he believes transparency is still lacking in international charity work. For instance, as Cambodia still uses a cash-based system, it is hard to verify how funds are actually used.

At Hope Village, multiple staff buy ingredients for the meals according to detailed menus, and OHF’s Singapore staff inspect the weighing of ingredients over a weekly Zoom call.

The charity is big on maximising the benefit-to-cost ratio, allocating 20 per cent of donations for costs and 80 per cent to directly help its beneficiaries, which Mr Kee said is higher than other organisations.

Besides the homes, OHF has sponsored Cambodian students to encourage them to continue schooling, and trained rural youth in computer skills and English so they can get better jobs.

They also built 160 “rice bag houses” in Nepal by filling up rice bags with soil to construct earthquake-resistant houses, after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in 2015 destroyed villagers’ homes.

In December 2025, Mr Kee opened a luxury boutique hotel, the Himalayan Hideaway Resort Pokhara, The Centara Collection in Nepal. He intends to create jobs for locals and to use part of the profit to fund OHF.

He said Singaporeans are generous in giving funds to disaster relief efforts, but he hopes more will contribute their time and effort in long-term projects overseas.

“Even without disaster, people are still suffering,” he said.

The grandfather of four is still brimming with ideas, such as training Singaporeans who can prevent fraud in NGOs, and expanding OHF’s operations to more countries.

But he simply wishes to be remembered as a happy man who does good. Gesturing to pictures and books documenting his work, Mr Kee said: “With an award, or no award, I’m very happy... these are reward enough for me.”