USP alum Jessica Lee (History + USP, Class of 2017) is on this year's Prestige 40 Under 40 list! Unveiled in August 2021, this list identifies 40 Singapore-based individuals from various industries effecting positive change in today’s world. They displayed tenacity, are imaginative and unafraid to think big.

As a producer, director and writer at Beach House Pictures (one of Asia’s largest independent production companies) and a member of Project X (a non-profit organisation which provides social support to sex workers), Jessica feels that it is important to tell the stories of the marginalised through her works. In 2020, she directed The Shades of Love, a documentary that centres on the lives, loves and losses of three female sex workers in Singapore. This passion project won Jessica a $5,000 grant for her work from Malaysia’s Freedom Film Festival, which screened the documentary virtually last December.

She shared a personal reflection on this achievement and her hope for the future here – “I hope we grow stronger as a community by having the courage to engage in deep listening and tough conversations with others driven by a genuine desire to understand, seek common ground and interests, and simply let others know that we are there for them. A moment of kindness is sometimes all we need to keep us going in this fraught and uncertain future. And I wish that for us all.”

Kudos to Jessica for the impact she’s trying to make to our present and our future.