Innovation, creativity in marketing and designs vital to make SCORE products attractive to potential buyers and investors

Kuching: Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said the state is now ready to accept new and fresh ideas that can make Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) more marketable on the global stage.

He said innovation and creativity in marketing strategies and designs of products of SCORE were vital to make attractive to potential buyers and investors.

In this, he viewed the Sarawak campus of Limkokwing Institute of Creative Technology as an important institution to train human capital with the soft skills that can bring sophistication to SCORE and other industrial development areas in the state.

“We need people who are trained to unleash new ideas, and (those who are) able to muster these ideas to develop better products. We need creative workers too in SCORE,” he told a press conference after officially opening Limkokwing Sarawak yesterday.

The institute’s chief executive officer Professor Datuk Parid Wardi said Limkokwing Sarawak would play its role to build upon the creative skills of young Sarawakians.

This, he said, was so that the state’s economy would be enriched by Sarawakians owning and running enterprises that provided the bridge where other industries, earmarked for development in SCORE would require services in the commercialisation and promotion of products.

“As a strategic partner of Sarawak, we believe the state’s solution’s lie in the empowerment of its young people.

“Here at Limkokwing, a student from even the most remote part of Sarawak will become a technologically competent individual who is also creative and innovative,” he said.
Limkokwing Sarawak is part of the Limkokwing global universities network which has its main campus in Cyberjaya. Its other campuses are in Indonesia, Cambodia, China, Lesotho, Botswana and United Kingdom.

At its only campus in Borneo, Limkokwing Sarawak now has a student population of 500 people from 10 countries. It started in 1999 as a feeder college preparing students with foundation programmes before sending them to Cyberjaya campus to complete their diplomas and degrees.

In the duration of ten years, it eventually introduced diploma and degree courses including a 3+0 degree programme with UK’s Anglia Ruskin University of Cambridge.
It has also relocated from Halan Tan Sri Ong Kee Hui to Travillion, where it started to recruit international students before settling at its present campus at Jalan Nanas.

Yesterday, it achieved another milestone following the official launching of its website - which promotes the institute as well as Sarawak. It also signed a memorandum of understanding with British Association of Tourism and Hospitality Executives Limited.

Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Alfred Jabu, Limkokwing Institute of Creative Technology governing council chair Senator Dato Sri Empiang Jabu and founder president Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Datuk Dr Lim Kok Wing were among those present yesterday.