Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Assalamua’laikumw.b.t.

Yang Berhormat Senator Dato’ Seri Empiang, Chair of Limkokwing Sarawak campus.

Yang Berbahagia Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing, the founder of this particular institution.

Yang BerbahagiaSaudara Professor Dato’ Parid Wardi.

Saudari anakanda Haniffah.

Yang Berhormat Dato’ Patinggi Alfred Jabu.

Saudara-Saudara dan saudari-saudari sekalian.

This morning is in fact a very elevating experience for me. As Chief Minister, I had the occasion to address many institutions of higher learning, but it doesn’t put me on the top of wings of an eagle that I saw, like in your clip just now.

Coming to this occasion gave me a glimpse of what we Malaysians can do to prepare ourselves after, what we can do after the year 2020.

I come from a generation of people who struggle in the depths of poverty trying to find a way to survive and find ourselves a place in the reality of a modern changing world.

Within the last 50 years, I have seen the tremendous surge of efforts in trying to make us Malaysians to play a role in a globalised world.

But what are the efforts we are trying to do may not seem enough until we can institutionalize the process of building our thoughts.

To prepare ourselves to be more braced to the reality of change.

To persevere with the hope that we are well prepared by our past endeavors.

To be sensitive enough to recognize the profile of changes that are taking place.

To be able to focus on how we play our role in this segment of new reality.

To study the problems that we can solve and to find the solutions that can fit the problems.

That is not an easy process to go through, but we have seen efforts have been made in the changes of education that gives us hope, that will globalize world, we are not going to lose our identity, but we are big enough to be able to grapple with a very enlarged reality.

And that is what I think the approach that Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing is trying to instill into the creation of these institutions, for that I say we have the correct innovation in education that can prepare us beyond 2020.

I had great admiration for Tun Dato’ Patinggi Mahatir because he has been able to focus our struggle in one short phrase…”Try to achieve 2020”.

But that struggle in fact have brought together a lot of our efforts for the last 2 generations into a proper perspective of what our efforts have been able to do and our capability to achieve that general prosperity of our people as a whole, not the elite few anymore.

To live with enough opportunity to enjoy the dignity of a human being, to be able to have opportunities to improve ourselves through education, but above all to be able to keep on striving to cope with changes and if possible to excel in it.

The last part is the most difficult.

Nevertheless we have the correct approach in education, I think we can achieve it.

The explosion of opportunities that has opened up to us after World War 2 is beginning to be very clear to us now. In spite of the fact that we felt trapped in poverty 50 years ago.

In that poverty, we can take the positive side of life, the desire to survive and survive well. Almost the whole of Asia is motivated by that…Sarawak is no exception.

I have seen people who are driven by the desire to survive, to conquer, to conquer the limitations of their time.

Some with education, very few in fact, with formal education that we have. People like me probably I am lucky, Dato’ Petinggi Jabu is lucky.

But I have seen people who have only passed primary 6. Who have produced results in their struggle to survive and to do better and to excel by employing, by marshalling all their experiences in life and by mastering whatever details and various facets of the challenges that they have to face and apply a solution to problems that will lift them out of their limitations, their own time.

I was in charge of the timber industry for more than 30 years. Here I saw a lot of self-made men who have been able to conquer limitations of their own upbringing and background, to shine with creativity, with innovation in the way they perform their task.

Today at Limkokwing we try to find a place we can institutionalize the approach to be innovative, to find, to study a problem, to train ourselves to study the problems and then to find the correct solution for it.

That is called innovation.

But in the early days, people lack the ability to brand all those creative processes yet are in fact giving us all the raw materials of creating a surviving and a thriving Sarawak, that give us the present level of creativity, level of prosperity.

That is what I think the driving force that makes people like Tun Mahatir to visualize the possible achievement for 2020. I have to say probably to think beyond 2020.

And to me there are many things that I fear and the many things that inspire me. The fear I have is that in the process of trying to be industrialized, we more than tame the spirit of our better brains. Sometime we settle them with conventional wisdom.

But now I know that education and pioneering has been able to look beyond the preparation of our people, to master the processes, the strategies of achieving prosperity.

We want to restore back the innate ability of people to work for their comforts and yet to unleash their creativity in the way they pursue their livelihood.

And that is what we need most beyond 2020. I would like to see therefore that whatever spark of ingenuity we have in us must not be extinguished because we submit to the very rigorous regimentation of the disciplines of making our economics producing the best results.

We ought to be able to preserve a little spark of ingenuity that we have to achieve our little corners of happiness. To give that satisfaction, and if possible to widen that circle of satisfaction to embrace others who can share with us because they have the same instinct and the same desire to have a sense of fulfillment in the way they chart out their lives.

I think it is very important to have an education that will preserve that little spark of ingenuity in us.

Tan Sri, I hope your institution can intensify this effort.

It is not easy to be part of a globalised world, but we have no choice but to take that place, our own prosperity and our ability to unleash in a much wider world, our own expression of genius, whatever small thing we have, depends on our ability to preserve both the innate ability we have, to blend with the big push of the world with its increasing treasury of knowledge that can sometimes bewilder us all.

So because of that therefore, I would like to say here it is very important for us to get our children as early as possible to adopt some avenues of creativity in their lives, beside the pursuit of conventional education.

It is not enough to carry the big, bigger and bigger bags that children have to shoulder every year. It is very important that we want to make their back stand straight and their shoulder can be pulled back with the full pride of knowing that they are still a human being with full creativity.

I see that this particular institution, Limkokwing University of Creative Technology with its vast connections with the digital world, with vast connection with centres of learning all over the world and its constant effort in trying to synthasize what the experience of the outside world is like, with the creativity that grows in our little corner so that we can unleash much more, much more efforts, we can share much more experience to build an innovative education that gives and preserves us with a sense of identity.

Sarawak of course has very strong sense of identity now. I am very happy to see that we are still very close to nature, in spite of the fact that we are now invaded by thousands of cars on the road and getting frustrated being caught in the traffic jam.

Of and on we see Malaysians are doing well, going back to the kampongs, to go back and renew their connections with the legacy that was preserved in that simple environment.

We must not allow ourselves to be completely distorted in our perception of life, particularly the one that affects our personal happiness by the sometime very discouraging rat race of the highly urbanized life.

I think this can be overcome if there are armies of people trained in the new ways, to be able to sense that we have the power to make life more enjoyable because we can preserve and unleash our creativity.

And I think that is the key to the way we can empower the generations to come, the generations that will translate the prosperity of 2020 into a happy Malaysia.

Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing has contributed a great deal. I have no authority to say that he has contributed to world education, but I suspect that there is some element of that in the efforts he has taken, so congratulations.

And to the students I would say, be the pioneers of a society that is busy but is able to preserve its ability to go on in search of happiness because you know there is something beyond the horizon that can still give you that glimmer of light that gives your life very meaningful.

I think to have creative education is the best gift we can give to our young people who will make the bulk of society after 2020. Take your place; you have been trained in the new ways. Take your place with confidence, with perseverance and with the desire to contribute to a society that we want to preserve to be happy.

I know you can do it, so struggle on. Thank you very much.