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Singapore pioneers a groundbreaking approach to grief support with the world’s first music album and children’s book by Direct Funeral Services
Music for Comfort is the world’s first music album developed using monaural beats specifically designed for grief support in open spaces, while The Colours of Missing You is a children’s book that guides both young and old through the experience of grief using colour and storytelling. Together, these resources offer gentle, accessible pathways for emotional expression and reflection.
In line with the same commitment to bridging tradition and technology, Direct Funeral Services has also introduced Memory Weave, an AI-driven tool designed to help families honour and celebrate their loved ones through deeply personalised digital tributes, extending remembrance beyond the farewell.
Driven by a deep understanding of the needs of grieving families, Direct Funeral Services partnered with The TENG Company to co-develop Music for Comfort. The album is positioned as the world’s first to utilise monaural beats specifically designed for grief support in open environments such as funeral wakes.
Comprising 10 original tracks, the album was developed in collaboration with researchers from the Singapore Institute of Technology, with compositions aligned to the emotional stages of farewell. Early research findings indicate promising reductions in commonly reported grief-related symptoms, including anxiety and emotional overwhelm.
Alongside the album, Memory Weave, an interactive digital tool that offers families and friends a collaborative way to celebrate a life well lived. Attendees can contribute photos, videos, or audio messages via the app. These shared memories are then woven into a personalised digital montage, accompanied by music from the Music for Comfort album and played throughout the wake, offering attendees an intimate and reflective glimpse into the many facets of the departed’s life.
Jenny Tay, Managing Director at Direct Funeral Services, shares, “Every person’s life is a tapestry of stories and moments that deserve to be celebrated. With Memory Weave, we aim to provide families with meaningful ways to remember their loved ones, while creating a deeply personal farewell. By combining innovation with compassion, we hope to honour the beauty of each life lived.”
While Music for Comfort was initially conceived for funeral settings, its therapeutic potential extends beyond death care. The album may also support individuals navigating other forms of emotional loss, including divorce, illness, separation, or major life transitions. Building on The TENG Company’s Music for Mindfulness album released in 2023, Music for Comfort represents a continued exploration into emotional well-being through music. Four of the album’s ten tracks were released on Spotify in the last quarter of 2025:
(https://open.spotify.com/album/1KBClxkYV8YN78UdqTXjw5?si=XeYiRmXwR-mInRV3i vQzLA).
Written by Darren, The Colours of Missing You is an exquisitely illustrated book that helps both children and adults navigate the intricate emotions of grief. Inspired by Darren’s personal experience of losing his sister in 2022, and drawing on his expertise as a psychotherapist and leader in the deathcare industry. As the third title in a series of grief-support publications, this book uniquely uses the colours of the rainbow to represent the non-linear nature of grief.
Each colour – from red for anger to blue for sadness and indigo for healing – invites readers to acknowledge and process their feelings without judgment. The book’s captivating visuals were brought to life by Shan Jiang, a Shanghai-born, London-based artist renowned for his collaborations with global brands like Nike and NASA.
“The typical ways of addressing grief through silence, avoidance, or clinical terms can feel heavy and inaccessible. What we need is a softer entry point. Music and story help us feel first, before we think,” said Darren TK Cheng, CEO of Direct Funeral Services.
Together, these initiatives by Direct Funeral Services reflect a growing shift towards more compassionate and inclusive approaches to grief support in Singapore, underscoring how thoughtful integration of art, technology and human care can create meaningful spaces for remembrance, reflection and healing.
Hashtag: #DirectFuneral
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About Direct Funeral Services
Established in 1980, Direct Funeral Services began with humble beginnings and has since grown to become a household name in Singapore’s death care industry, providing funeral pre-planning and specialised funeral services for Taoists, Buddhists, Christians, Catholics, and more. With a steadfast commitment to providing thoughtful, professional, and innovative afterlife services, the company has supported generations of families in celebrating and honouring the lives of their loved ones.
Beyond serving families, Direct Funeral Services is dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of death planning and fostering the value of filial piety among the younger community. Through compassionate initiatives and outreach efforts, the company continues to encourage meaningful conversations around end-of-life matters.
Even as Direct Funeral Services embraces innovation, including AI-driven solutions like A Life Well Lived and Memory Weave, the company’s fundamental belief in respect and compassion remains at the heart of everything it does. This guiding principle ensures every service is delivered with care, dignity, and a deep understanding of each family’s unique needs.
To learn more about how Direct Funeral Services is transforming the art of remembrance, visit directfuneral.com.sg or contact their 24/7 helpline at +65 6555 1115. For media enquiries, please contact Direct Funeral at 
[email protected].
Asia’s first Design & Innovation Festival announces its venue and key speakers — where Japanese design expertise meets the cultural diversity of Asia
| Name | SYNC Design & Innovation in SITE 2026 |
| Date | Friday, June 26, 2026 |
| Venue | Paragon Hall, 5th Floor, Siam Paragon, Bangkok, Thailand |
| Admission | Free (advance registration required) |
| Languages | Thai / English / Japanese |
| Website | https://syncforum.asia |
| Organizer | Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. |
| Production & Co-organizers | FOURDIGIT Inc., National Innovation Agency (NIA), Thailand |
| Supported by | Creative Economy Agency (CEA) |
| Production partners | Y’s Connection Inc., J-WAVE, Inc., iDID |
Hashtag: #FOURDIGIT
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Code4Mzansi highlights the growing strength of South Africa’s developer ecosystem and the role of youth-led innovation in shaping the country’s digital future
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Media OutReach Newswire – 26 May 2026 – South Africa’s emerging developers are building close to the ground, with many of the strongest solutions at the inaugural Huawei Code4Mzansi finals focused on systems people use every day: township retail, healthcare, energy, agriculture, payments and the creative economy.
The competition was held in partnership with the Department of Small Business Development. “The Code4Mzansi competition is not just a celebration of achievement, it is a launchpad for the future,” said Minister Stella Ndabeni, whose department co-hosted the event and delivered the closing address.
The finals revealed a clear shift from building abstract digital products to practical tools that help small businesses trade better, communities access services more easily, and local industries solve problems faster.
Four finalist teams focused directly on the township economy, with solutions covering food safety verification for spaza shops, offline point-of-sale systems built for load-shedding, WhatsApp-native marketplaces for informal retailers, and community credit systems for SASSA grant recipients.
Others addressed AI-driven healthcare access, electricity theft detection, smart agriculture, financial infrastructure for the creator economy, and AI-generated African music.
Held at Huawei Office Park in Woodmead, the finals brought together more than 100 attendees, including government representatives, academic partners, industry leaders and media.
“The quality of the finalist solutions demonstrated the potential of local innovation to respond to real market needs,” said Steven Chen, Cloud CEO of Huawei Technologies South Africa.
Academic partners included the University of Pretoria, the University of Johannesburg, the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town.
“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and technology is their greatest accelerator. The participants here today are future entrepreneurs who will drive South Africa’s digital economy forward,” said Professor Thokozani Shongwe, Vice Dean of Postgraduate Studies, Research and Internationalisation at the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment.
Industry partner rain also attended. Leon Nortje, Principal and Senior Architect at rain, said the competition offered a strong view of the country’s emerging technology pipeline.
“It is always good to see new projects and new teams working on solutions that are valuable and industry-related. We will be looking out for potential new employees,” said Nortje.
The winners
The finalists competed for a prize pool of R800,000. MAAT by SIMVAK was named the overall grand winner and received the Business Value Award, taking home R300,000. The platform addresses food safety and regulatory compliance in South Africa’s informal retail sector through AI agents, real-time product recall alerts, and counterfeit detection for the spaza shop ecosystem.
“The spaza network is the supply chain for most South African households,” said SIMVAK founder Shingirayi Mandebvu.
HealthHive by FTCK received second prize in the Business Value Award category, taking home R200,000, for its AI telemedicine platform that matches patients with the right medical practitioners based on their symptoms.
Auraa received the Grand Innovation Award for its AI music engine built to generate authentic African sound. The platform has been associated with an album that has crossed one million streams.
The Future Star Award went to e-Khadi, a community credit and stokvel platform giving SASSA grant recipients access to essentials at their local spaza shops, supported by AI-assisted credit scoring and fraud detection.
The People’s Choice Award, voted by the public on Huawei’s social media channels, went to DevRift, a semi-finalist in the competition, who took home R100,000.
Minister Ndabeni delivered the closing address, positioning Code4Mzansi within the government’s agenda for youth entrepreneurship, small business development and digital inclusion.
“Our task is to ensure that innovation does not remain a moment of applause, but becomes a pathway to enterprise creation, digital inclusion, and sustainable growth,” she said.
“Thank you to Huawei for being a perfect partner on the journey that we are travelling, and of course, those that matter most, the developers who dared to compete,” she said.
Code4Mzansi forms part of the global Huawei Cloud Developer Competition. In its inaugural edition, South Africa attracted more participants than any other country: 1,041 across 353 teams, including 176 enterprise teams, resulting in the highest enterprise participation rate among all competing markets. Twenty semi-finalists were selected before the top nine advanced to the final.
For the finalists, the work is just beginning. As Minister Ndabeni said, “Go home today proud. But tomorrow, wake up, build again.”
Hashtag: #Huawei #Code4Mzansi #SouthAfrica
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About Huawei
Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With 213,000 employees operating in over 170 countries, we serve more than three billion people worldwide.
Huawei is committed to bringing digital to every person, home, and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world. In 2025, Huawei generated CNY880.9 billion in revenue, reinvesting 21.8% (CNY192.3 billion) into R&D, with about 53.7% of its employees working in R&D. As a private company fully owned by its employees, Huawei focuses on customer-centric innovation and open collaboration to create lasting value and drive technological breakthroughs globally.
For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow us on:
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Congratulating Dr Lai on her achievement, John Lee, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), said that the HKSAR can “transform from a ‘supporter’ of the country’s great aerospace endeavours into an ‘executor’ “.
“This not only demonstrates the HKSAR’s capability in contributing to the country’s development into an aerospace power, but also showcases how Hong Kong could better integrate into and serve the overall national development,” Mr Lee said.
“This mission is of great significance, as it is not only the first manned spaceflight mission during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, but also the first time for a payload expert from the HKSAR to participate in it.”
The Shenzhou-23 crew will conduct on-orbit rotation with the Shenzhou-21 crew. The crew, including Dr Lai, will stay in the space station and conduct multiple experiments and applications in various fields such as scientific applications.
The Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry of the HKSAR Government, Professor Sun Dong, led a delegation to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center to witness this historic moment. Members of the delegation included other government representatives, I&T experts, youths and students.
“I truly believe this is a great demonstration of Hong Kong integrating into and serving the overall national development through concrete actions, while contributing our strength in I&T,” Professor Sun said.
” ‘Science and technology is primary productive force, talent is primary resource, and innovation is primary driver of growth.’ The HKSAR Government will continue to drive the development of I&T, accelerate the establishment of an international I&T centre, and make greater contributions to building our nation into a strong power in science, technology, and aerospace.”
Commissioner for Innovation and Technology of the HKSAR Government, Mr Ivan Lee, said that the Government had been providing funding support for universities and research institutions in conducting aerospace technology-related projects through the Innovation and Technology Fund.
“In 2024, we launched a special call for funding applications, inviting universities to submit project proposals related to aerospace technology. Following a selection process, we supported six projects. Among them was the Multi‑Spectral Imaging Carbon Observatory (MUSICO) developed by a team from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,” he said.
On the Tiangong Space Station, Dr Lai will conduct experiments including operating the MUSICO — the world’s first lightweight, high-resolution synergistic observatory for carbon dioxide and methane emission point sources.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Dr Lai is a Superintendent of the Hong Kong Police Force. In the recruitment exercise of China’s fourth batch of preparatory astronauts launched in 2022, she was successfully selected as a payload expert and was deployed to the China Astronaut Research and Training Center for training.
Before embarking on the historic spaceflight, Dr Lai expressed hope that it would inspire more Hong Kong youths to devote themselves to the field of I&T, thereby contributing to the country’s scientific and technological self-reliance and strength.
Hashtag: #HongKong #BrandHongKong #I&T #aerospace #technology
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