08/08/2026
Persistence and determination will lead to success.
In June 2020, an 18-year-old student in a remote Malaysian village decided she'd had enough of losing signal every time she tried to sit for an online exam. So she climbed a tree.
Veveonah Mosibin, a farmer's daughter from Kampung Sapatalang, a village in Pitas, Sabah, had already tried building a small hut on a nearby hill specifically to find a spot with usable internet. On the day of her exam, she discovered the hut had been destroyed. With no backup plan and a test she couldn't afford to miss, she climbed a tree instead, set up what she needed to stay connected, and documented the entire ordeal in a video she titled "24 Hours On Tree Challenge."
The video wasn't just about the exam itself. Throughout the 24 hours, Veveonah dealt with a hornet sting and worked with limited supplies, all while trying to maintain a stable enough connection to complete her coursework. She's said she only made the video to share her experience and never expected it to reach beyond a small circle of viewers.
Instead, it went viral across Malaysia almost overnight, earning her the nickname "Treetop Girl" and drawing national attention to just how unreliable internet access remained in parts of rural Sabah. The story sparked real debate, including a since-retracted comment from a deputy minister who initially suggested her video had been exaggerated for attention, a remark he later walked back and apologized for.
The impact went beyond public sympathy. The video prompted Malaysia's Communications and Multimedia Commission to move forward with building a new telecommunications tower near her village, ultimately improving internet infrastructure for Veveonah and her entire community. She later reflected that even if the fame itself was overwhelming at times, she was glad her situation ended up helping the people around her gain access to something as basic as a stable connection.
Universiti Malaysia Sabah also offered her a scholarship shortly after the video's success, allowing her to pursue a bachelor's degree once she completed her foundation studies. She went on to graduate with a degree in marine science, finishing with a 3.46 GPA.
But her path didn't stop there. Struggling to stay engaged with marine science during a stretch of entirely online, pandemic-era learning that lacked the hands-on fieldwork she needed, Veveonah made the decision in 2021 to shift her focus toward medicine instead, completing her original degree first before starting fresh. She's since enrolled in a five-year medical program at Management and Science University in Shah Alam, with hopes of eventually returning home to Sabah to work as a surgeon.
What started as one teenager's desperate scramble for a signal in a tree ended up reshaping her village's infrastructure, and quietly reshaping her own future right along with it.
