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February 5, 2025

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Most people often overlook long-term care until they are older or faced with no other choice. Unfortunately, by that point, it may already be too late. Lily Vittayarukskul was pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering when she witnessed both her oldest brother and mother battle with an illness that required extensive long-term care. The situation became even more challenging when her aunt was later diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. The seek for quality care became daunting, even for those fortunate enough to have some form of insurance.

As a member of a Cambodian immigrant family, Lily experienced the challenges of caregiving firsthand, but the financial burden became unbearable. In a recent interview with TechCrunch, she exclaimed,  “It wiped us out financially.” The profound emotional and financial impact of the experience ultimately led her to shift her focus to genetic and data science.

Finally, in December 2021, she decided to take action by founding Waterlily, a San Francisco-based startup aimed at helping individuals and financial advisors navigate long-term care planning through cost modeling and funding strategies. Using artificial intelligence (AI) to forecast a family’s future long-term care needs and expenses, Waterlily predicts a family’s future long-term care needs and expenses, guides them in creating a care plan, and identifies the most suitable ways to finance it. Options may include purchasing life insurance with a long-term care rider, investing in a dedicated LTC policy, utilizing annuities, or self-funding.

Lily explains, “Most people begin thinking about long-term care between the ages of 65 and 70, or only when they need it, but by then, it can be too late.”

Leveraging more than 500 million data points and machine learning algorithms, Waterlily delivers highly personalized care and cost predictions. The platform forecasts when long-term care may be required, how it will unfold, and the potential expenses involved. Lily proudly states, “We have formal data-sharing agreements with long-term care providers, government databases, academic research studies, and individual users.”

Waterlily’s vision is undeniably compelling, and Lily isn’t the only one who sees its potential. She initially launched the company as a solo founder, but it soon caught the attention of angel investor Evan Ehrenberg, the former founder of Clara Health. Evan became intrigued by Waterlily’s early research and the industry’s reaction. Curious, he tested the platform himself and was stunned by its long-term care predictions—so much so that he hired a personal trainer, adjusted his diet, and revised his financial plans. Impressed by its impact, Evan, who became MIT’s youngest neuroscience PhD, officially joined Waterlily as a co-founder.

Evan Ehrenberg [left] and Lily Vittayarukskul [right] together (Image Source: Evan Ehrenberg)

Lily believes Waterlily differentiates itself from competitors by providing a more personalized experience through deep predictive modeling integrated into a user-friendly platform. Although it only launched in March 2024, the company’s monthly recurring revenue (MRR) has already grown to more than 22 times its initial level. Waterlily now serves eight major clients, including several Fortune 100 insurance carriers and Prudential.

Looking ahead, Waterlily aims to expand its services to include disability, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and Medicare planning, enabling families to make more informed health coverage decisions. Additionally, the company is exploring opportunities for international growth, with plans to enter markets in Asia, Canada, and the U.K.

John Kim, former president of New York Life and investor of Waterlily, sees the platform as the first AI-native guidance tool addressing one of the most pressing challenges of an aging American population.

Kim concluded, “Long-term care insurance is a growing and largely underserved need among trusted advisors today. Waterlily’s guidance tool stands alone in its ability to provide customized, personalized recommendations for long-term care needs. I believe it will be a game changer for the LTC insurance marketplace.”

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Farm of the Future: Farm66 Cultivates Vegetables Within Hong Kong’s Skyscrapers

In the course of COVID-19, a significant number of people have reported having insufficient access to fresh food entirely for sustainable living.

Gordon Tam has created an urban farm that solves this problem. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Hong Kong-based vertical farming – Farm66. With advanced farming technology, he grows fresh vegetables inside skyscrapers in Hong Kong. 

In 2013, Tam and Billy Lam, Farm66’s COO, founded Hong Kong’s first high-tech vertical farm and developed LED lighting and wavelength innovations for farms. Tam and his team found that different light wavelengths affect plant growth. Red LEDs generate longer, stronger stems, whereas blue LEDs produce larger, stronger leaves.

The technological and robotic advances at Farm66 are also both groundbreaking. The 20,000-square-foot indoor farm is managed with IoT sensors and robots for quality assurance and other tasks. 

When asked about the challenges facing conventional farming, Tam cites a lack of talent as a significant issue. “It’s because the children of many remaining farmers don’t want to take over the farms. They think it’s a very tedious job.” – he told Forbes. This is why he placed a premium on technology and saw it as a means to attract young people to farming by making the industry more appealing.

Farm66’s latest farming mechanism impressed billionaire Tang Yiu’s tech-focused venture capital firm ParticleX. The Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, Sino Group, and the Hong Kong government’s Cyberport and Science & Technology Parks are also investors. A total of over $4 million in funding has been acquired so far. Hengqin Financial Investment and the City University of Hong Kong have also backed Farm66.

There are currently fifteen full-time workers at Farm66, including data analysts, food scientists, and mechanical engineers, who can harvest as much as seven tons of vegetables every month. Tam hopes to share its company’s urban farming methods and success in Hong Kong with other cities. For instance, Farm66 converted a shipping container into a mobile farm for use in Middle Eastern desert cities.

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Chicago’s Khmai Fine Dining: A Daughter’s Tribute To Mother’s Healing From Khmer Rouge

Khmai Fine Dining is a unique Cambodian restaurant in Rogers Park, Chicago. Owned by executive chef Mona Sang, the name is a mix of “Khmer,” the language and ethnicity of native Cambodians, and “me,” the Khmer term for mother, to emphasize her mother’s important role in presenting traditional Cambodian cuisine.

Mona, together with her sister, two brothers, and mother Sarom Sieng came to the US in early 1980 after surviving the Cambodian genocide. The Khmer Rouge tortured Sarom and executed her husband as the family fled to Thai refugee camps.

A single mother who never spoke English, Sarom began cooking for other families in the Cambodian community in order to survive and eventually expanded into catering events at Living Water Community Church in Rogers Park.

Mona hasn’t heard every detail of Sarom’s experience during the genocide, but the trauma her mother went through is still very clear to her. “I don’t know the whole story, but she tells it little by little when she’s cooking,” Mona told Eater Chicago. “I think there’s a lot of other people out there who have been through the same thing, but their story has never been told.”

In 2018, another family tragedy came when one of Mona’s brothers died unexpectedly in his sleep. Her mother discovered him the next morning and that image haunted Sarom.

Now that she is almost 80 years old, Sarom spends her days with her 13 grandchildren or assisting at Khmai.

According to Eater, Mona isn’t simply conveying a message to its customers with Khmai’s name. It is also a way of healing and writing a love letter to her mother who has fought for them to survive through the restaurant.

Khmai’s mesmerizing dishes include “Nom Bahn Chok”, a vermicelli noodle dish with minced tilapia marinated in kreoung and prahok, simmered in coconut fish stock, “Sach Koh Ang”, beef skewers marinated in lemongrass, Khmer spices and chili peppers, and Mai’s famous eggrolls stuffed with ground chicken, bean thread noodles and taro root.

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Filipina Mom Started Her Career Selling Vegetables Got Her Degree At 32 To Become A Teacher

Liezel Nudalo Formentera is now ready to work toward achieving her lifelong ambition in the field of education.

Formentera works as a street vendor in Cebu, Philippines, and hopes to improve her family’s situation someday. The only way she can see doing so is to further her education and get a better job. She could not finish elementary and high school, but she was determined and decided to join the DepEd’s ALS (Department of Education’s Alternative Learning System) program. 

ALS is a parallel learning system in the Philippines that gives students an alternative to the formal education they already got. She didn’t have to miss out on her primary education because of ALS.

In 2018, Formentera finished high school, and she began to sign up for college. She went to Cebu Technological University to earn a Bachelor of Industrial Technology with a major in Computer Technology (CTU). 

Because she also has to look after her children while she is in school, there were times when she felt physically exhausted from her work. They also experienced financial difficulties, but her farmer husband assists and supports her. There were times when she wanted to give up on her studies when times were tough, but she considered her children and the life she has worked so hard to provide for them. Thus, she worked harder for it.

She understood that there is no age limit on learning. Today, she remains overjoyed and grateful that she never expected to graduate from college. “Life is like this when you are confronted with hard times; simply pray to the Lord, and your blessing will arrive when you least expect it. This is for my children and my hope for the prosperity of my family. My children will not face poverty as I did.” – she happily shared with their local newspaper, The Philippine Star.

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Takashi Cheng Honored With A Special Award For Exemplary Initiatives On Elevating The AAPI Creator Community

The Gala hosted by the Asian Business Association was in full swing during the evening spent celebrating AAAPI contemporaries. The evening’s events revolved around the concept of authentic old Hollywood, and its guest list included several famous personalities. 

Takashi Cheng was honored with the Media Visionary of the Year Award, one of the night’s main highlights. He is one of the business leaders from the Los Angeles community who highlights the accomplishments of prosperous business owners and corporations and has contributed to advancing the ABA’s goals and mission. 

Cheng serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Society One. He is known to be a creative investor and a public intellectual. Cheng has seen many ups and downs, but he credits his success to the American Bar Association (ABA), which he calls a shelter for young professionals seeking mentorship and employment. He attributed a significant portion of his success to the support of his wife and their young children.

Cheng’s Bling Empire castmate and friend Kane Lim called him a visionary. Lim is proud and happy that Cheng is in the spotlight for investing in people and projects that aim to elevate the Asian community. He is amazed at how Cheng invests in people and projects that seek to promote the Asian community.

Besides all the recognition that night, Cheng modestly used his platform to show the world that a large investment in the AAPI creator community is needed to provide a perspective and a complete spectrum of content that better understands the underrepresented. 

Cheng pledged $100 million to create new films, programs, resources, and infrastructure for Asian American business leaders. This showed Society 1’s support for AAPI creators. He concluded that he had “come full circle” from being a spectator in the crowd to receiving recognition from highly regarded community members.

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