The Digital Generation4

Wednesday, 7 October 2009 | Filed under Education

Today’s young generation is a different quality of people. They are growing up in an era of technology that has enhanced connectivity and eased laborious work.

It’s a digital world where the word “instant” is moving from hours to minutes to seconds and now it is reducing further to nanoseconds.

This is an impatient generation. Long hours sitting in classrooms reading textbooks are out. They will not mind the long hours if their minds are engaged in ways that are meaningful to them.

We have to understand this new generation in order to impart what we want in the way that they want. This is a very smart generation, unafraid of new technology and therefore very capable of achieving great things.

This is a generation that is not in awe of developed nations as much as the older generations were. This is because Malaysia, over the past decades, has narrowed the gap between itself and the developed world.

Our young people see a more level playing field than we do.

We must ride on this mindset and give our young people the skills they need so they can move the nation to a higher level.

We must show our confidence in our young people. We must give our youths the chance to put forward their ideas to shape the new world. We must do this because these are talents that can cross borders with ease.

I am convinced they will provide the edge we are looking for to create a vital niche for the country in the world market.

That is what I see in the future. And because I see this I have tried my level best to give them the environment they need to acquire the vital skills so they can make an impact with their ideas.

The Limkokwing University campus is unlike any you may find anywhere in the world. It is designed to inspire a different kind of learning. It is designed to be innovative. That is the culture here.

Learning by doing

The learning that is provided at the university equips young people with a combination of many skills. They learn financial management even though they are design students. They learn people management even though they are not studying human resources.

They learn brand management even though they are multimedia students. They learn marketing and promotions even though they are not business students.

They learn all this through the brand development initiatives taken at the campus. Here you see new brands being developed and the students experiment and explore with this living entity.

It makes it easier for them to understand the mechanics, the intangibles and the values that can never be experienced or understood in a classroom.

And because they are able to interact with students of other disciplines involved in these “incubation suites” they understand how business works, the value of teamwork, how a combination of disciplines are needed for successful ventures.

And they are then able to perform better academically. The textbooks begin to make sense.

In fact they will be able to go several steps further to provide their own case studies using their experiences as yardsticks.

So learning takes place where academic performance and business enterprise fuse to provide a most meaningful experience.

The outcome of all these will be most interesting to see in the years to come as students graduate and take with them the learning that may see them develop into entrepreneurs.