'Lifelong learner' on a mission to change our world

A "lifelong learner" is how digital tech veteran Lee George Lam would like to call himself.

The newly-appointed chairman of Cyberport saw his career take off in the technology industry, but it ended up in the financial sphere instead. Now at the helm at Cyberport, he aims high in burnishing the city's brand as the predominant global epicenter of financial technology.

"Over my 30-year career, I had started off as an assistant engineer. And because I had stepped into management, I got my MBA. Later on, I was so interested in policy that I got my MPA. When I moved into governance, I took an interest in accounting so that I became a fellow of CMA Australia and CPA Australia," recalls Lam.

"You learn to serve, not learning for yourself. Learning fixes my problems at work and, of course, it helps my career to advance a lot."

Echoing Cyberport's paramount mission to consolidate Hong Kong's position as a leading "digital economy" around the world and a highly sought-after destination for fledging global tech companies, Lam's next learning plan is to really do something in the local public services sector.

This resonates with his belief that "life is not just about being an entrepreneur, a unicorn, a shareholder and a billionaire, but also about innovation, entrepreneurship and doing good business to make our society better and change our world".

As a top brass in the local startup scene, Lam says the journey to entrepreneurship always comes with failures and setbacks.

"But, life is a marathon rather than a 200-meter dash. Failure makes no big issue," he stresses, reiterating his hope that the city's young generation could embrace failure with a more open mind.

Such an open mind also means looking north and feeling what our motherland has achieved so far.

Over the past few decades, the Chinese mainland's economy has stunned the world with an economic miracle that has lifted millions of people out of poverty.

More importantly, what makes China's future so exciting comes from its overwhelming influence on the tech world, where we've seen mainland companies setting global trends with home-grown technology products and business models not only in traditional areas like digital technology, but in promising new ones such as digital payment and artificial intelligence.

"Such a sense of sympathy and togetherness will make our young people more successful and global," says Lam.

sophia@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 07/21/2017 page9)