John, Mary, Jane, Ali, Muthu, and Ah Hok (their names have been changed to protect their identity) look at me with a puzzled look on their face. “Why are you called Tupai?” They ask me in unison as they stare into the wide-open eyes of our squirrel looking back at them.
I always giggle when they do that.
I explain, “It’s because Tupai is actually 2π. That’s 360 degrees when expressed in Radians.”
“Because we’re trying to give kids a full circle understanding of math”, I continue, stretching both my arms out wide to draw an imaginary circle in the air… almost knocking a waitress’s tray of drinks in the process.
In unison, their lips make a full circle and go, “Ooooooooooooooh.”
2π, it’s a perfect, beautiful circle.
Just like your baby nephew’s chubby cheeks that you feel like pinching every family dinner.
But funny enough, the name Tupai didn’t start with this meaning. It wasn’t some masterfully planned branding moment. No grand “aha” from the start. It actually came about… quite by accident.
We had just started the company, full of ideas but missing one very important thing: A name. So I did what a slightly clueless entrepreneur would do when we’re stuck. I made a mind map. Inside the mind map lay snippets that included:
Cute
Animal
AI
Education
And a few dozen more illegible scribbles later, there it was:
Tupai
A cute animal with ‘AI’ at the end, but it didn’t resonate with me. Until I had a brainstorming session with my co-founder and our first ever employee, a math teacher.
I plastered up everything that I had on my mind-map, and as I mouthed off our name ideas, I muttered, “Tupai.”
“WAAAAAIT!!!”, our math teacher mouthed, surprising us. “What? What?” I asked.
“Tupai.””That’s 2π.”
“That’s a full circle.”
And just like that, everything made sense. What started as a random, slightly accidental name suddenly became something meaningful. 2π isn’t just a mathematical expression. It represents completeness. Wholeness. A full circle.
Where concepts connect, where understanding feels complete.
And that’s exactly what we want learning to feel like.
So yes, our logo is now a squirrel with wide eyes that stare into the distance, just like we were when we were in school, trying to learn math. Curious. Confused. Wondering if it would ever click.
At Tupai, we’re here for that exact moment, when it finally does. That “Ooooooooooooooh.”
