This is from wikipedia:
"Ng was born in the United Kingdom in 1976 and spent time in Hong Kong and Singapore.[1] He later graduated from Raffles Institution in Singapore as the class of 1992 to receive his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the class of 1997. Then, he attained his master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston as the class of 1998 and received his PhD from University of California, Berkeley in 2002. He started working at Stanford University during that year; he currently lives in Palo Alto, California"
Not likely that he would have chosen to stay on in SG anyway.
But that's not really the point. For years now, the system has never allowed people like these to thrive.
It prefers those who guaiguai goes through the system and ultimately rewards those who have the necessary academic achievements and do/say the "right" things, or for that matter, don't do/say the "wrong" things.
There is one particular person who is primarily responsible for such a state of affairs in SG, the fact that someone like Zorro is supposed to be held in high esteem, whereas someone like Andrew is being influential to the world elsewhere.
This is a result of insisting on having things in a certain way as dictated by one person including those close to him, as well as focusing on people more than topics and issues. What I mean by the last part is that as long as you agree with the person in charge and do what he says and toe his line, you will thrive. This type of system does not allow diversity, creativity, innovation or free speech/thought. In fact, it stinks.