Padawan Municipal Council Memorandum of Understanding with IEM (Sarawak)

suppadmin | March 11, 2017

Batu Kitang State Assemblyman, Lo Khere Chiang congratulated IEM (Sarawak Branch) Graduate and Student Section for their hard work and success in this year’s event. I have been invited as the Guest of Honour for the third consecutive year, and I’m indeed very happy to see the growth in participation over the years. This year, the scope of the exhibition has definitely been extended and a commendable effort has been made in incorporating technical talks on different areas of engineering.

The purpose of this exhibition, as mentioned by the organizing chairman, is to promote IEM to the public and to raise public awareness on the importance of engineering, as well as to encourage students and members of the public to consider engineering as a career.

I understand that the theme of the event this year is “Engineers, empowering our nation.” Yes, we are seriously in need of more engineers to develop our nation. We need young engineers to take the lead and to drive the process.

Each year during this expo, I try to bring new inspiring messages to those who are present, and today, I would like to make an emphasis on the importance of innovation in engineering.

As mentioned before, I’m very pleased that we have a record number of engineering related companies participating in this expo this year.

President Bush once said: “You can’t do today’s jobs with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow.”

How many companies have risen and fallen over the past 10 years? If technology giants such as Nokia managed to get their core business acquired by Microsoft, who is to say that your company will survive in the next 10 years?

During the press conference on the acquisition, the CEO of Nokia famously said: “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost.”

Those of you here with a good memory may remember the Nokia 3310, which was deemed one of the best cell phones ever produced. How did Nokia get from being a technology giant to another footnote in the history books?

Ladies and gentlemen, innovation is what set Nokia and the rest of the companies which survived apart. Don’t get me wrong, Nokia was a great company, but they missed out on opportunities. Their opponents were simply too innovative and too powerful for them. The same goes with Blackberry. Does anyone of you remember the Blackberry phones?

Yeah, they can be quoted in the same category as Nokia now. Not only did they miss the opportunity to earn big bucks, they lost their chance of survival and ended up being swept away by the tidal wave of change.

There’s a Chinese proverb that goes: “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.” Now, I’m not going to touch on building walls, that’s another topic for another politician.

What I encourage each and every one of you present here, especially the representatives of the companies participating in this expo, is to embrace change. For the students and working adults, if you embrace change and improve yourself on a personal level, you are giving yourself a second chance.

If you are reluctant to change, you are doomed for failure. Companies that survive embrace change and improve their companies by creating new products or by venturing into new markets. By so doing you are giving your company a new lease. If you refuse to do so, another company will replace you, and you will be left in the office asking the question why.

For many people, innovation is a very vague concept, but in my opinion, innovation is transforming new ideas into products and services. It’s about converting ideas into reality for common use.

The car which you drove here with, the little device in your pocket right now, and the light shining upon us – these are the results of engineers with highly developed innovative skills. According to the Global Innovation Index 2016, Malaysia is ranked 35 out of 128, which is a reasonable rank. However, I would like to challenge the IEM to spearhead the effort to break through the barriers of innovation. And only through innovation can we prosper towards becoming a developed nation!

As the Chairman of the Padawan Municipal Council and an engineer myself, I am always very supportive of any event which aims to promote engineering. In fact, the Padawan Municipal Council is currently in the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding with IEM (Sarawak Branch). This will mark the first collaborative effort between a city council and IEM in Sarawak, further cementing the strong collaboration between the two parties.