At 18, Riona Krishnan Dighe is preparing to represent Singapore at the Miss Teen Universe global finals in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, while balancing an unusual mix of pageantry, international modelling and AI research.
Riona has walked Fashion Weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris. She was also Miss Teen London 2024 and first runner-up at Miss Teen Universe UK 2025 before winning the Singapore title.
Away from the runway, she spent two years researching how natural language processing could be used to measure Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness framework. She worked with a mentor from Cornell University and later presented her research in Bhutan, including sharing the project with schools there.
Riona recently completed her A-Levels at Cheltenham Ladies’ College in the UK and is set to study business at University College London. She also began charity work at 11 and has travelled to Bhutan from a young age.
For the upcoming pageant, she is training three to four hours a day in catwalk skills while learning a traditional Peranakan dance for the talent segment. She said she hopes to showcase an aspect of Singaporean culture that audiences overseas may not know much about.
Despite her busy schedule, Riona says one of her biggest challenges is simply finding balance at 18. She also believes young people should treat AI as a tool rather than become overly dependent on it, arguing that human thinking will remain important as technology advances.
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