Limkokwing Unlimited Creativity - Creating Branding University

Nanyang Siang Pau, May 4, 2008

The only one Creative Technology University in the world

After being a cartoonist, a reporter, Limkokwing has joined an advertising agency. Not only bringing the agency to a higher level, he also brought the whole local advertising agency into the different stage.

He said, “The Malaysian advertising agencies used to create only advertising billboards and signages, they don’t even have chances to participate in promotional campaigns.”

His advertising agency had then broken this rule, and became the biggest local advertising agency during that time.

However, he sold the company later because he did not want to do the same thing repeatedly.

“When the company was expanded to the biggest one throughout Malaysia, I already had more than 200 creative awards. I was thinking, if I continue, I’ll be doing the same thing, hence, I decided to sell it.”

After that, he founded Limkokwing College of Creative Technology, which was later upgraded to a university in Year 2003.

Limkokwing expressed: “Limkokwing University of Creative Technology is not a usual university, it is the one and only ‘creative skills’ university; Its focus is on innovation.”

Many people think that this university only focuses on designs; Limkokwing mentioned that this is a wrong perception, because this university’s concept is to apply creativity and innovation into all courses. This university also offers architecture courses, mass communication courses and business courses, and everything is based on creativity.

Students are allowed to get management permits

He says, this university is the one and only creative technology university in the world, for instance the cafe and hair salon on campus are with franchise permits. The students can get the franchise licenses and open up franchise outlets elsewhere. “We have to train graduates who are independent and able to perform sole responsibility once they graduate.”

After they graduate, they can then become leaders in the country.

Limkokwing thinks that he himself is not an educationist but a participant in academics field, hence, the way he cultivates students are different from other ordinary higher education institutes.

He adds, he “designs” graduates, he will set a result first-a type of student that he wants (product), then, he will revise and design the whole cultivation process.

In other words, he wants to design his students.

One of the main points is globalization. He says, this university is an international university where students come from 130 countries; hence, it can help to build the global thinking mindsets among the students.

The percentage of employment for Limkokwing graduates is very high.

He does not deny that the university fees are more expensive than other universities, but, he emphasizes that this is the university quality assurance.

“This is our setting, we don’t compete with other universities but we have to be above them.

He thinks that they are outstanding in the market, those students who think that this place is suitable for them will eventually come and study here.

Advices and suggestions to the youngsters - Do not follow the others blindly

Limkokwing says, knowing the history is a good thing, however, we cannot live in the history, and hence, handling the future is more important.

He believes the future is the period where everyone has not reach, where during this period is where you need to paint the colours!

“The colours that you paint will shape you. You will have to think about what kind of person you want to be and start to make yourself the person you want to be.”

Hence, the efforts you put in now will shape the future you.

He always reminds the students that:” In the university, the study surrounding is barely setting, and this is the only way to make students study comfortably, hence, to understand the real world is the essential point.”

Besides that, he also encourages entrepreneurs that:” When you set up a business, don’t merely think about money earning, you should focus on keeping the business well.”

“The only way to perform your best in a business is not to merely focus on money making. Only if you keep everything flows well in a business, there’s where you earn money.”

People around always ask about Limkokwing’s secrets to success. He says, there are 4 important points:

  • Think beyond
  • Great sense of awareness
  • Uniformity
  • Create, don’t follow the others blindly

He emphasizes, don’t blindly follow what other people are doing.

“When you are working on something new, you will eventually work harder because it’s something new which you have never done it before and hence, you will perform better. Every step is a new move to you.”

Moreover, he also thinks that one should be happy. A happy person sees everything optimistically and optimism is a key to success as well.

Inheritor

Limkokwing says his son is working for him now; the daughter is completing her studies.

He says frankly that the kids do not have the intentions to inherit his work. However, he says that they are very brilliant kids.

“They have never been through any hard time in their lives, their upbringing is always well-protected.”

Besides, he mentions that he has got a team of loyal staff who has been with him for 20 years.

Yet, by using his own name as the name of the university, Limkokwing is worried about the university when he is no longer around one day.

But he tries his best to make sure everything runs normally when he is not around, “It’s just like now, I always travel, when I’m not around, things still do well. I’m satisfied.”

Diplomatic Relations

As everyone knows, Limkokwing has close relationship with our government. This is what makes Limkokwing stand out among the others.

He mentions, he does not only have good relationship with the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir, but also our current Prime Minister Pak Lah and Deputy Prime Minister Najib.

He also mentions, through Tun Dr. Mahathir, he gets to know the former Prime Minister of South Africa Mandala. When he was helping Mandala to run his election campaigns, he was in South Africa for almost half a year.

“For the election campaign, I’ve gone to a few places in the country and it helped me in building well diplomatic relations with them.”

At the mean time, Limkokwing has good relationships with the leaders in several countries in Africa.

Despite advertising promotions, he mentions that he also brought along a few Malaysian businessmen to Africa and has several tie-ups. Some business ideas were brought into Malaysia as well.

Satisfied with the current achievements

“I’m enjoying, more than whatever I’ve done in the past.”

He says that he always still receives regards emails from students and parents from all around the world. This makes him feel very warmed and touched.

“I’m happy with what I’ve done.”

Limkokwing University in 10 years time -
100 million students globally

When Limkokwing found that many international students studying in Malaysia come from developing countries, he saw the chance of exporting the teaching methods of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, especially to developing countries.

He mentions Malaysia has European style education; hence, the international students are here, to experience this type of education.

“They actually don’t have to come here; hence, once we spotted the chance, we expand overseas.”

Limkokwing points out, no matter what they do, if they do things well, this will help the country’s expansion. Hence, the good students are welcomed wherever they go.

“We meet the local community needs and help her to expand.”

He adds, the university will set up campuses in countries where they are needed; furthermore, the nurtured students will benefit the country’s economy.

He says that education is something you cannot wait, especially in developing countries, they need talents. In most of the situations, the university is always setting up campuses by invitations, for instance in Botswana, they are the only private university in the country, and it has become more popular.

Universities all around the world grows steadily

Now, Limkokwing University of Creative Technology is expanding rapidly, it will be opening up the third campus in Botswana; at the same time, in Lesotho (August), Swaziland (September), Maldives, Zimbabwe. The most interesting part is the plan of opening a campus in New York at the beginning of next year.

Limkokwing hopes that the university can have about 100 million of students in the coming 10 years, including university campus students and online students.

He says due to the university is growing steadily; they have to keep expanding and building new campuses.

“Education needs to be kept investing, kept adding in new features.”

He mentions that the expansion plan to China got good and quick response. Once the expansion is done, it will get good response; hence, it encourages him to keep moving on.

Regarding the expansion modal, Limkokwing says that due to the company has good record, therefore, gathering modal has never been an issue.

He adds they get good credits and recognitions developing in foreign countries. On the other hand, he feels that Kuala Lumpur is transforming too slow.

First Creative Technology University

He says, “In Kuala Lumpur, you are like pushing yourself trying to fly, but in other countries is like pushing yourself then you can fly. They are very different.”

Limkokwing University of Creative Technology in London gets recognition, and this makes the rest of the local universities start making changes as well.

Actually it is obvious that Limkokwing is always the trend setter, the best creative technology university in Malaysia and also the first accredited private university.

The university does not only get recognitions in London and Africa, the creative teaching method is also very popular in China.

Limkokwing says, “We do not only collaborate with Tsing Hua University, we also work with many universities in China.”

From the first creative technology college in Malaysia, transforming into an international creative technology university in less than 20 years, Limkokwing points out that there are three main points:

  • Having courses that meet the country’s vision and mission
  • Having happy students
  • Encouraging students building own personality

He further explains: The university courses meet the requirements of the country’s vision, mission and also the expansion plan; this can ensure the graduates are helpful in the country’s development.

Encourage the students to keep being creative

In addition, he says Limkokwing University of Creative Technology is different from other universities. The students here are happy students because they can do things they want to do and learn things they want to learn. Then, they also keep encouraging the students and do not criticize them, this is to help them in building self-confidence.

Limkokwing says: “For all that I’ve done, I really enjoyed them. I’ve gotten a lot of motivation from the students.”

Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (Background)

Limkokwing University of Creative Technology was founded in year 1992, has been in the education field for more than 15 years. After continuous transformation and efforts of nurturing students, they have trained numerous creative and talented students, helping them using their rich professional knowledge to enter the creative field or make use of their specialties. Depending on the leadership and co-operative spirit, the university keeps exploring new chances.

Limkokwing University of Creative Technology in Cyberjaya plays the role of raising talents. They have about 8,000 students where 60% of them are international students who come from 130 countries. They successfully create a global environment classroom.

Limkokwing University of Creative Technology was upgraded to a university in February, year 2003. This allows the university to offer exclusive bachelor degree courses and international courses; the university offers a variety of courses now, including foundation programmes, diploma programmes, degree programmes, twinning programmes and double degree programmes.

As well, it has more than 50 courses for the students to choose, 6 main faculties are Faculty of Architecture & the Built Environment, Faculty of Communication, Media & Broadcasting, Faculty of Multimedia Creativity, Faculty of Design Innovation, Faculty of Information & Communication Technology and Faculty of Business Management & Globalisation.

Based on “Indusity” concept, business units which are set up in the university campus allow the students to experience entrepreneurship and marketing in managing products and services. These business units include exclusive cafe, hair salon, gym, fashion demonstration hall, one world club. They all play important roles in setting the country development, brand creation and fashion leader.

Besides that, other facilities including photo studio, film and television academy, editing suites, multimedia labs, in-house radio station, animation workshops and recording studio.

Following the global tendency, Limkokwing University of Creative Technology is the first, one and only university which “export” local education overseas, in Botswana, Jakarta, Beijing, Cambodia and London. It globalizes education and it symbolizes a new era for higher education.

The university’s global classroom growing healthily in many countries, not only proving that Malaysian higher education courses have international quality, but also provide good education for the local communities.

The university has successfully become one the most colourful international universities, gathering talents from the east and west, promoting the culture exchange, and also opens up wider expansion chances and education chances, assisting Malaysia in becoming an international education hub.

Tan Sri Limkokwing (Background)

Malaysia outstanding Chinese education entrepreneur Tan Sri Limkokwing was born in the 40’s. Although he managed to complete his primary and secondary education, he could not continue when it came to Form 6 level due to the poorness of the family.

After he left the school, he started working without letting the mother knows. Until a few months later, the mother found out the truth.

He says, “My father was a carpenter and my mother was also working. I wanted to start working at such young age was because I didn’t want to see them suffer.”

In the school, he was already very into arts and design and had also won a lot of awards. Yet, the mother was angry because she felt that arts and design is a waste of time and said that they are “useless knowledge” in life.

“My mother hoped that I could work in a bank or in other business related fields. She thought that those jobs were the best for me, but I was not interested. Hence, whenever I won any awards, I would hide them so that she would not find out.”

Having the passion and talent in arts, Limkokwing was quoted as the “Arts substitute teacher” in the school. Whenever the arts teacher was absent, he would be “recommended” to be the “substitution” to teach the students in the class to do drawing.

After he left the school, he was hoping to find chances to use his skills. He then found a cartoonist job, and this was where his arts life started and where his picked up more on drawing skills.

After awhile, he was bored with his job. He was then offered to be a news journalist in Eastern Sun. He also did not like the job because he had to run around the police stations, courts and newspaper office and that did not make him feel good.

Obviously, a “mechanical” job like journalist was not what he wanted, hence, he chose to quit after 6 months. In the 6 months, he had learnt a lot and that was where he got his chance to get in touch with advertising and knew the people in the industry. Then he stepped into advertising world and became a designer.

Although had to learn everything from the basics, this did not affect him from climbing up. In a few years time, he was promoted to be both the arts director and creative director.

“I like advertising, no matter hearing or seeing, he thinks that there are always rooms for one to show. Using all my creative thinking and concept are the best creations.”

Positive Thinking Becomes the Motivation

After 10 years, a strong desire of creating something new was born! Repeating the same thing everyday, although the advertising business is expanding, room for new creations has become smaller. Limkokwing kept telling himself that: “I want to take new challenges, keep moving forward!”

Positive thinking has become his motivation, today; we see a worldwide well-known “Limkokwing University of Creative Technology” is the fruit of Limkokwing’s unstoppable hard works and daring to take challenges spirit.

He says proudly,” This is the only university which runs according to ‘creative technology’. However, many get the wrong thinking, thinking that all the courses offered here are mainly designs based.”

“Actually, we have many other courses as well, for instance architecture, media, communications and IT. I believe that no matter what courses or jobs one chooses are inspired by ‘creativity’. This cannot be avoided and this is the message that my university wants to spread around.”

Talking about why the university chooses black as the corporate colour, he answers that most of the artists favour black. This is how an artist creates his special personality, thinking out of the box.

Awards

Year 2002

  • Excellence Export Award (by MATRADE)

Year 2003

  • Private Education Excellence Award (by Malaysia National Private Education Association)

Year 2006

  • Information & Technology Excellence Award (Multimedia Education) (by Technology Business Review)
  • Education Excellence Award (by Malaysia Canada Business Council)
  • Global Creativity Award (by The Oxford Association of Management)
  • World Quality Assurance Award (by Paris Business Initiative Directors)

Year 2007

  • Century International Quality Era Award in Platinum category by the Madrid -based Business Initiative Directions in Geneva, Switzerland
  • International Quality Award Crown Award London 2007
  • Special Award for Globalising Malaysian Education by Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia

Year 2008

  • International Arch of Europe Award for Quality, Leadership, Technology and Innovation by Business Initiative Directions, Frankfurt

4 Secret Successful Steps

  • Have vision
  • Be sensitive and aware
  • Be consistent
  • Do not follow the others blindly

Copyright © 2012 Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. All Right Reserved.
Designed & maintained by World Wide Web Domination, Centre for Content Creation.