Get to know Tribeless 👋

The Tribeless team at an event in Kuala Lumpur in June 2019

Our Story Our Team

HOW WE got here

A Brief History

A group photo of the 9 people that joined the first ever Tribeless Dinner at Kuala Lumpur

A dotted line in a swirly pattern to represent Tribeless' journey

A collage of group photos of the virtual workshops facilitated by Tribeless

Tribeless began in 2016 as a series of dinner parties. After hosting hundreds of conversations, we realized that we were actually creating spaces for people to practice empathy. That’s how we made the transition into an empathy training company!

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September 2016

our first tribeless dinner

Our founder Gwen Yi hosted the first ever Tribeless Dinner with one rule: "No small talk." And the rest, as they say, is history.

A top-down view of the Empathy Box prototype, then known as Tribeless-In-A-Box, being play tested at a ChangemakerXChange event in Manila

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AUGUST 2017

the first empathy box prototype

Back in the day, the Empathy Box was called "Tribeless-In-A-Box"! This is a picture of one of our first ever prototypes, complete with icons stuck to the back of poker cards.

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January 2018

the tribeless host program

We launched our Tribeless Host Program, gathering folks from 17 cities & 11 countries to host Tribeless Dinners in their own cities!

A photo of Shawn signing official documents to incorporate Tribeless in Malaysia

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February 2018

We're legit now, baby!

We officially registered Tribeless PLT as a company. Here you can see Shawn signing the papers for our bank account. ✍️

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September 2018

our first empathy box launch!

A poster promoting the first ever Empathy Box v1 public sale and its components

Ahhhh, memories. Here we have our first public Empathy Box sale. We didn't know the first thing about marketing or sales – we just wanted to get it out into the world. As you can imagine, that didn't go too well...

Gwen Yi at London with the London Eye in the background

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December 2018

To lead is to let go

After a less-than-spectacular Box launch, Gwen Yi decides to step down as CEO and hand over the reins to Shawn. (It is still one of the best decisions I have ever made.)

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October 2019

aaaand... we're back! v2.0, baby!

The Empathy Box v2 in full view with all its components laid out on a table

2019 was a tumultuous year for the team. Our highlight of the year was creating V2.0 of The Empathy Box – more colors, better quality – and launching it to great success!

Gwen Yi and Shawn posing on stage during their presentation at the Obama APAC Leaders Summit 2019

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December 2019

Empathy box, meet obama leaders!

We hosted Empathy Box conversations for 200 Obama Leaders from 33 countries across Asia-Pacific at the 2019 KL Convening! Definitely one for the books. 🌟

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APRIL 2020

our #empathycircles campaign

A poster promoting the Empathy Circles Global Experiment Campaign

When COVID-19 struck, we ran a 30-day experiment to explore if we could create human connection online. 600+ people from 40+ countries ended up joining in the fun. 💗 (Spoiler alert: The answer is yes!)

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2021—2022

Tribeless goes global

Fast forward to today, and we've made the transition into an empathy training company. To date, we've worked with over two dozen organizations across USA, Europe and Asia-Pacific! 🌎

Discover Our Approach

meet the PEOPLE OF TRIBELESS