A guiding hand

> QI Group executive chairman Datuk Seri Vijay Eswaran is on a quest to create greater value in education

with electric buggies and solar power, where the international student community experiences eco-friendly living in the ‘Harvard of the East’.

When I asked Vijay why he established QIU, he answered: “When I discovered that we were spending quite a sum on scholarships for medical students, I thought: ‘Why don’t we have our own university’?”

A strong advocate for professionalism and English proficiency, Vijay revealed that QIU engages renowned external examiners from top foreign universities to enhance its academic reputation, and that students are fined when they don’t speak English out in the open!

Before I left Vijay’s command centre in Petaling Jaya, which is filled with mementoes of notables from the corporate, academic, political and sporting worlds, I was presented with a new book written by him, Two Minutes from the Abyss – 11 Pillars of Life Management.

Reading the book two weeks later, I found myself wondering how useful it would have been for me if the book were to have been written 20 years earlier!

I found gems everywhere in the almost 200-page book.

Vijay’s matter-of-fact penmanship focuses on such key elements of life as having a sense of urgency, a need for change, humility to absorb useful values, and the ability to see the big picture.

One passage reads: “Change is survival. Change is a necessity. Change is nature’s way of forcing us out of our comfort zone.

“We miss the importance of change when we wallow in our comfort zone, resting on our laurels.”

Another says: “Change without a sense of urgency is usually not enough and always too late. We cannot afford to change gradually or slowly.

“We need to change before we become irrelevant. We need to change before we are made redundant.

“We need to change before we are made to change.”

Jeff Yong, after making his mark in the twisty maze of mainstream journalism, has finally decided to enjoy what he does best – observing the unusual and recounting the gleeful. He can be contacted at lifestyle.borak@ gmail.com.