Try entrepreneurship.
Billionaire Henry Lim Bon Liong, chairman and CEO of Sterling Paper Group of Companies, challenged the first year college students of Foundation University not just to look for jobs after they graduate but rather, to become entrepreneurs.
In his speech during the Academic Opening Convocation July 4 that kicked off the University’s 64th founding anniversary, Lim said the Philippine educational system has been designed to prepare students for employment.
“As one gets out of college, the next step is to get a job. But employment has limitations which may not be able to draw the optimum potential in a person,” the tycoon said.
As the eldest child in the family, Lim was forced to learn entrepreneurship the hard way after he took the Sterling Paper Company at the age of 24, upon his father’s death in 1976.
“I didn’t even know how to interpret a balance sheet,” Lim, a mechanical engineering graduate from UP Diliman, admitted.
But that did not stop him from learning the ropes, as he enrolled in various short courses offered by business schools, to include the OPM (Owners, Presidents, Management) Program at Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Under his leadership, their small store in Chinatown grew into a conglomerate with businesses in paper, retail, packaging, property development, call center, and agriculture.
Lim said students usually choose courses based on facts and trends currently available, without the benefit of foresight, leading to the wrong choice of courses and professions. “We see a lot of job mismatches and high unemployment rate despite the improvement in the country’s economic performance and outlook,” he said.
Noting the dwindling enrolment in agricultural schools nationwide, Lim warned that if uncorrected, the country will be short of experts who can help improve this sector.
Lim, who is also considered the “Father of Philippine Hybrid Rice,” started last year a scholarship program for agriculture at Foundation University. The purpose of the program, he said, is to attract young individuals to venture into the field of Agriculture, with the objective of helping the industry grow through modern technology, and to ensure food sufficiency of the country.
“Preparing the younger generation to be able to carry and continue my advocacy on agricultural development is the greatest legacy I can offer this country,” the multi-awarded entrepreneur said.
Agriculture, coupled with entrepreneurship, is Lim’s formula for pushing the country forward.
“I always encourage people to be different, by becoming an entrepreneur rather than just being an ordinary employee. The stakes and hard work are high but the self-gratification is much greater,” he said.
Lim’s SL Agritech Corporation is the Philippines’ biggest supplier of hybrid rice technology, which is helping farmers nationwide produce unprecedented rice harvests.
This technology has been adopted by Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and as far as Africa.
In the same forum, Foundation University also conferred upon Lim the degree of Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, for his entrepreneurial spirit and for his outstanding contribution to Philippine agriculture.
