Human Development

Limkokwing University’s Graduation Ceremony 2003

Addressed by Tan Sri Lim, Limkokwing University College, Kuala Lumpur
25 January 2003

First of all, may I congratulate all the parents who are here today. You should all be so proud of your children. I am sure they are equally proud of you.

May I now congratulate all who are graduating today, Class of 2002. You deserve every praise that comes your way. You now join the many Limkokwing graduates who are making important contributions in this and many other countries around the world.

We live in a country that has been blessed for so many years with peace and prosperity.

Many of us are so sheltered and protected, and so well provided for by our parents and those who care for us that we have learned to take the good things in life simply for granted.

Elsewhere in the world, in so many places, there are many who are not so lucky.

There are some 250 million children in the world today who simply don′t get a chance to go to school. Many of them have to work to support themselves and their families before they are fifteen, many before they are even twelve!

There are 1.2 billion hardcore poor spread around the world close to 900 million of them live in the Asia Pacific region, countries which are our neighbours.

It is hard to imagine that just outside our borders there are so many who don′t know how to read and don′t have enough to eat.

In their homes there is no electricity. In their world there are no schools, no universities. Imagine living a life like that, and you will see how lucky we are?

Graduands,
Today many of you begin a new journey.

What lies beyond is a mystery. No one can say for certain where your journey will take you. You may soon discover that to arrive at where you really want to be may not be so easy.

The qualification you have gained is a stamp on your passport that allows you to travel, to explore and to discover. But it carries no guarantee that it will get you where you want to be.

What will your journey be like? Will you turn your journey into a voyage of discovery? Will it mirror the courage and the creativity of others who have journeyed before you.

Will you harness your passion to challenge the conventional and the norm, and in doing so, produce new inventions and discoveries that will make a meaningful difference to the quality of our lives? To these questions only you have the answers.

The frontier you seek to explore may be new, unknown and therefore uncertain.

But the passion that moves you will be the same passion that has moved thousands of explorers before you.

These are the explorers who defied accepted norms, who refused to take the easy way out and whose efforts in making things better have brought progress to mankind.

The caveman who invented the wheel provided the inspiration for the first steam-propelled cart that appeared in China some 800 years B.C.

Centuries later German inventor Karl Benz combined a tricycle with an internal combustion engine to create the world′s very first car in 1886.

Today hundreds of millions of people own cars, and there are many industries that have sprung up from this one invention. Industries that provide employment to many people and create wealth for many countries.

The world today is nothing like the world of old.

What used to take years can now be completed in a matter of days. What used to require the combined energy of a hundred people can now be comfortably managed by a single person using a computer.

If you trace the emergence of computer technology you will arrive at the doorstep of John von Neumann, a nonconformist creative thinker, whose work provided the foundation for computer technology as we know it today.

As recently as in 1955, the world had only one installed general purpose computer. This computer took up space the size of a basketball court and it weighed 30 tons. Yet it had less computing power than the very small computers you can now keep in your pockets.

Every new invention, every new discovery inspires someone to try something new and this chain reaction of invention and discovery is resulting in mind-boggling creations. Creations that will surface over this decade to change dramatically how we do things, how we make things and how we use them.

By 2025 it may be possible to take a cutting from your body and grow a new person. Cloning has become a strong possibility ever since a sheep called Dolly was successfully cloned by a group of British scientists.

It has been speculated that cloning will free women from giving birth. And with further tinkering of our genes all kinds of cures can be found for all kinds of diseases.

Ladies and gentlemen,
If all that is true, by 2020 you can all be living virtually a disease-free life.

We can also look forward to living much longer. Some scientists are predicting that by 2050, many people will be able to live healthily till they are way beyond a hundred years.

And by the next century, people could expect to live up to 200 years easily.

Amazing! But I really can′t imagine anybody wanting to live that long and be that old!

All these are thanks to the men and women whose passion to explore, to discover, and invent has resulted in the amazing changes that will take place in the way we live and the things we do.

These people 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.

These were ordinary people who chose not to do ordinary things.

Soon we will be able to look forward to space travel for our vacations. The possibility of migrating to a colony in another planet will become real in this millennium ... so they say.

Graduands,
The possibilities are limitless for those who create to invent, for those who explore to discover, and for those who challenge the norm. The possibilities before you are truly limitless.

May the journey you begin today take you to the world′s most wonderful places and may your voyage be one of great success — one that is truly meaningful and rewarding.

On that note I bid you farewell and wish you the very best in all that you do.