Multi-talented Educator on a Global Mission
Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Lim Kok Wing likes to quote the example of men and women whose passion to explore, discover and invent resulted in the amazing changes in the way we live and the things we do.
These people, he points out, did not simply accept whatever that were handed down to them. They chose not to accept the way things had always been done. They defied the world they lived in. They moved mountains to look for answers. To them, nothing was impossible, nothing was unimaginable. They saw the possibilities. They saw the opportunities and they put their energy and creativity to good use.
People like Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing.
Tan Sri Lim had the vision to see a need where none existed before. He had the passion to do something that had never been done before. And he had the tenacity to keep pushing forward to translate that idea into reality.
In 15 years, he founded and nurtured a school into the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology which today operates campuses across three continents with a globally recognised brand that has attracted some 16,000 students.
The campus in Malaysia hosts 8,000 students from 100 countries. The other campuses are located in Indonesia, China, Botswana and the United Kingdom. Next year, Limkokwing Cambodia will open.
Tan Sri Lim set new trends with the establishment of the university. He married creativity to technology, uplifting public perceptions of professions that were thought to be low-paying and lacking in status.
The word “creativity” is today bandied about by everyone. But when he introduced it in 1992 and tied it to technology, people were amused. Today, industry, government, commerce, health, finance and education and many other sectors all require creative input that is managed by new technology to stay ahead.
He tells how he did it. “You spend time to get the right mindset in place, change the thinking of people, reduce the resistance, pre-empt the questions and at the same time keep pushing forward, keep implementing so that people can see how you translate an idea into reality, how you bring into existence something that was never there before. You will need a lot of determination to do what has never been done before.”
