Wing of GOLD

Prestige, August 2009

Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dr. Lim Kok Wing has become a global figure through his revolutionary approaches in strategic communications, branding and higher education. To date, the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology has made its presence felt in three continents. Saleha Ali meets the man who has been bestowed with numerous accolades, a recent one being Asia’s most accomplished educationist.

The prolific have said many things profound about education. Living in the information age as we do, the words of South Africa’s Leader, Nelson Mandela on the subject best hit the mark. Education is the most powerful weapon you could have to change the world, he said. But in various places where education is grinding along a pedantic trek, it takes a visionary to be able to steer matters out of the box and shape the paths of thousands of young minds towards what works for them.

For Malaysia, Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dr.Lim Kok Wing is that special person. The founder and President of the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology has been acclaimed an innovative global educator and with good reason.

His eponymous university has campuses in countries namely Botswana, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lesotho and the United Kingdom where a whopping 30,000 students from more than 140 countries are receiving their tertiary education.

An excerpt of what he said at the university’s graduation day last year is a small indicator of the powerful motivator he really is. He said the world has always been and always will be defined by people with the passion and the drive to push beyond borders and beyond boundaries. By people who will always move mountains if the mountains are getting in the way.

Hence, the “New Age” structure at the university designed to adequately prepare young people to handle the challenges facing the world today. It will be very hard for the creative mind not to want to do courses lie Multimedia Creativity, Design Innovation, Information and Communication Technology as well as in Business Management and Globalization there.

On a normal day, the university’s main campus in Cyberjaya practically bristles with energy and given its melting pot concept, it literally is the 21st century global village with students from Malawi, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Thailand, Fiji, Denmark and Mauritius, just to name some.

Since it emphasizes on creativity and innovation, factors that empower the young to strive for the very best and make the impossible possible, the premise is always charged with vibes of optimism.

The Students have won numerous awards, one being the 1st Astro Nextgen Contentpreneur award held last year to encourage youths in the pursuit of content excellence in various categories such as Short Film, documentary, website and animation. The winners scored in the Extraordinary Short Content category, snagging RM10,000, trophy and a certificate.

And ever so often the university’s Hall of Fame will be reverberate with music and activity as students hold presentation and performances in line with their chosen fields from hair and fashion shows to actual sing-out sessions initiated by its Sound and Music Design Academy.

Little wonder that Tan Sri Lim, aside from our Sultans, is probably the only other guy on local soil who has been ‘crowned’. For who would deny that he is indeed royalty in fields of strategic communications, branding and higher education and on his campuses, quite the emperor.

He was recently named Asia’s Most Accomplished Educationist and doubly honored with an Honorary Doctorate in Global Education from Korea’s Seo Kyeong University. The tribute came with an actual crown, an intricate gold plated creation of traditional make, that has found pride of place on the coffee table in his office.

“I didn’t know they were going to give me that!” he says, beaming. He was looking none the worse despite a hectic weekend, which saw the graduation of 340 students from 34 countries at the university when Prestige visited him.

Our proposed chat nearly got postponed due to his super-tight schedule. But considering that this is one man who, through his own admission, would hold 10 meetings on a Sunday, a half hour tete a tete was very welcomed.

Tan Sri Lim’s office in the Cyberjaya campus reflects the man he is – accomplished and well-travelled. There are antiques and collectibles from his travels abroad not to mention innumerable gifts, trophies, plaques and awards.

He treasures them all, he says, especially those which are not related to business. This includes the prestigious World Citizen of Peace and Humanity award he received just last month from the State of Palestine. The award was presented to him by the Palestinian ambassador to Malaysia, His Excellency Mr.Abdelaziz Aboughosh.

He told the media later that he found the award most meaningful as it came from a brave people who have lived the last 60 years in refuge cams fighting for their sovereignty.

For the record, Tan Sri Lim initiated a major scale exhibition in 1998 that showed graphic photographs and videos. The Institute of Public Relations Malaysia acknowledged it with an award for The Best In Social Responsibility then.

He cherishes also the words of former South African President, Nelson Mandela made in response to his participation in designing and promoting the latter’s successful electoral campaign for the African National Congress, A Better Life For All in 1994.

An excerpt from a letter Mandela sent after the nation’s first free elections read: “Young untiring efforts on our behalf have touched the hearts of us all. The size and magnitude of your contribution will have a very meaningful impact on the outcome of the election and on behalf of the people of South Africa, I thank you.”

Our own political greats from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Dato’ Sri Najib Tun Razak, the present Prime Minister have all expressed pride in what he has achieved.

It sums up why he has been described as most creative thinker, design wizard, Renaissance man, advertising maestro, genius educationist, icon, legend.

It is also not difficult to see where the students in his cool empire get the drive. “I always say I get the energy from what I do,” he shares. “People would then tell me that what I do will make me tired but that’s where the energy comes from!”

“I derive that from my students, their parents, from what the students do and how they have just been growing,” he continues. “You see, wherever they are, Limkokwing students are perceived to be the best. These things give me energy.

“It all stems from having a purpose in life. That’s what drives you!” he avers. “The secret is not to regard work as work. For instance, to me it just doesn’t stop. Even on a Sunday, I hold a series of meetings because from Mondays to Fridays, I have other things to do. Sundays are for meeting with people from the embassies and those who travel.”

“It takes more that will power to achieve so much. You know I didn’t come from a wealthy background but I’d always known what I wanted to do,” says Tan Sri Lim Whose breadwinner mother was a tailor.

“I have always designed things,” he continues, pointing out that the word ‘design’ encompasses everything. “You design a career, a speech, an idea. Conceptualizing is the more difficult for it, of course!”

His own professional journey attests to this. Tan Sri Lim has gone from being book illustrator and freelancer at Longman, a publisher of education books to being a journalist at a newspaper owned by Sin Chew Jit Poh.

A chance to do a comic strip got him noticed. He started off with Apu before moving on to Guli Guli. “I used to spend time with cartoonist, Datuk lat, we even started a cartoon club years ago.”

Tan Sri Lim found his groove when he entered the advertising world. He made it to the creative director post in his mid-20’s ad opened his own advertising agency called wings at age 27. (He was to sell the set-up 15 years down the road to advertising agency BBDO.)

“Being President of the Malaysian Advertising Association in those days, I realized there was lack of trained people in our corporate world. At the time, the expatriates were leaving and the change over was happening”

A burning desire to build a local industry in advertising led to the setting up of the Lim Kok Wing Institute (the college got its university status later). “It was more of a training centre for young Malaysians then,” he recalls.

His fresh and almost radical approach to education worked tremendously. The number of foreign students multiplied. “Right now, about 65 per cent of our students are foreign, “he says, “Malaysians account for 17 per cent. That is because we have expanded overseas.”

Tan Sri Lim grittily battled through the challenges of setting up his establishment son foreign soil like having to gain confidence from the governments in the respective countries, securing the confidence of the prospective students and their parents and overcoming some resistance from the local universities and institutions there.

“Naturally, you have to be very different. Otherwise, you have no business to be there as you’d have no extra values to give,” he reasons.

In the end, it was always the university’s multicultural environment that won out. “You see, we absorb all the cultures that the students bring. There is a real understanding of what globalization is about. It is the biggest gift that we can give them.” He reckons, proud that once in the outside world, his gradates are “often employed first.”

“The reason is they are a different breed. You watch them perform onstage, see them speak or sing, there is an air of exuberance about tem. They could make speeches in front of ministers or Presidents if you like, and they are fearless!”

What’s the secret? “Well, we are focused on talent development and produce gradates that are second to none,” explains Tan Sri Lim. “I’d like to say that we design the students and graduates. To me, if you design the person well, he or she will inevitably do well and they’d be ready to change the world.”

Tan Sri Lim finds great satisfaction in seeing his students develop into happy, confident persons. “Yes, this is one of the three things I enjoy about my work. The other thing is to be able to fit into the development plans of the country where you operate and play a role in developing that country in terms of its human resources.”

The third thing, he says, is to be able to bring the Limkokwing brand of education to the different parts of the world. “There is no university like this. The people in the industry designed it from scratch. It is about being actively involved in the development of the innovation industry.”

Last year, the institution became one of five to be accredited premier status in the United Kingdom, passing the stringent evaluation by the country’s Accreditation Service for International Colleges (ASIC), an organization appointed by the government to ensure education in the UK is of the highest standards.

Meanwhile, as proof of their well-roundedness, it as to be mentioned that one of the students’ initiatives is in spreading the message of peace with a campaign called Heal The World which is carried across the campuses and via the Internet.

“We are truly multicultural, tolerating, complementing, supporting and sharing. It doesn’t matter where you come from, we get along. We have people with head scarves and without, people with long skirts and short ones but you can see them holding hands. That should be the case,” says Tan Sri Lim.

“Information technology has taken over the world. It has not only made the world small buy transparent as well. We have to adapt to this change. We are still relying on an educational structure that have been there for years and years! This would be more of a stumbling block than anything else in the near future.

“That is something I would wish for – a shift in this area that could enable us to keep pace with the changing world. You see, one calendar year equals seven computer years! Everyone else is advancing and developing. We have to keep pace with them,” says Tan Sri Lim.

Truly, one can’t help but be in great awe of this man. For this very reason, his 21 year-old daughter, Tiffanee marie Lim (his other child is a son, Lim Kok Wing Jr, 26) compiled in a book titled Magic, the voices and thoughts of people from 100 countries dedicated to this genius.. Launched in April this year, it glowed with gratitude and admiration for him.

In her foreword, Tiffanee says, “His guidance wills you to move past the pre-set boundaries and do your own thing your way. My dad is always 15 steps ahead of me and most people, walking very fast. He doesn’t break sweat and never slows down. In fact, I think he is speeding up.”

And the world had better play catch up…

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