19/04/2026
In 2020, an 18-year-old girl from a remote Sabah village with no electricity and barely any internet signal climbed a tree and spent 24 hours in it — just to get enough signal to sit for her exams.
Her name is Veveonah Mosibin. Her village, Kampung Sapatalang in Pitas, was so cut off that she had previously built a hut on a hilltop to study. The hut collapsed in a storm. So she climbed a tree instead, edited the whole experience into an 11-minute YouTube video on her phone, and uploaded it — one hour of waiting for it to go through on a weak signal.
The video went viral across Malaysia. And then came the cyberbullying. Thousands called her an attention seeker. The overnight fame, combined with pandemic stress, pushed her into depression.
She could have quit. She didn't.
She completed her Marine Science degree at Universiti Malaysia Sabah with a 3.46 CGPA. She honoured her scholarship till the very end, even though she had known since 2021 that medicine was her real calling. Her viral story also quietly changed her village — the government upgraded its internet infrastructure, and the roads improved too.
In October 2024, Veveonah began her MBBS at Management and Science University in Shah Alam. She wants to become a surgeon. And when she's done, she plans to go back to Pitas — to serve the same community she grew up in.
The girl who climbed a tree for a Wi-Fi signal is going to be a doctor.
Some people are just built different.In 2020, an 18-year-old girl from a remote Sabah village with no electricity and barely any internet signal climbed a tree and spent 24 hours in it — just to get enough signal to sit for her exams.
Her name is Veveonah Mosibin. Her village, Kampung Sapatalang in Pitas, was so cut off that she had previously built a hut on a hilltop to study. The hut collapsed in a storm. So she climbed a tree instead, edited the whole experience into an 11-minute YouTube video on her phone, and uploaded it — one hour of waiting for it to go through on a weak signal.
The video went viral across Malaysia. And then came the cyberbullying. Thousands called her an attention seeker. The overnight fame, combined with pandemic stress, pushed her into depression.
She could have quit. She didn't.
She completed her Marine Science degree at Universiti Malaysia Sabah with a 3.46 CGPA. She honoured her scholarship till the very end, even though she had known since 2021 that medicine was her real calling. Her viral story also quietly changed her village — the government upgraded its internet infrastructure, and the roads improved too.
In October 2024, Veveonah began her MBBS at Management and Science University in Shah Alam. She wants to become a surgeon. And when she's done, she plans to go back to Pitas — to serve the same community she grew up in.
The girl who climbed a tree for a Wi-Fi signal is going to be a doctor.
Some people are just built different.
