 our founder |
Dr. Lien’s legacy sets the moral compass of the Foundation’s vision. His passion for education and commitment to the community continues to guide the Foundation’s work.
As an advocate of education, Dr. Lien co-founded Nanyang University (today’s
Nanyang Technological University), and was instrumental in starting the Ngee
Ann College (predecessor of Ngee Ann Polytechnic). He was the first Chairman
of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Council in 1980 and Pro-Chancellor
of NUS in 1992.
Dr. Lien’s passion for education stemmed from his childhood. Orphaned at 14 years, he never had an opportunity to receive a formal education. He shared a deep concern for poor people who were deprived of the chance of an education. Since he was 22 years old, Dr. Lien consistently gave a portion of his income to education.
Dr. Lien made longstanding contributions to Singapore’s community and history. He helped organise the civil defence in Singapore during World War II whilst his family departed for China. He later went to the war-time capital of Chongqing, where he sat on the Political Council as a representative of the overseas Chinese.
In 1945, he went to London as China’s special commissioner to discuss post-war rehabilitation. After the war, he became a municipal commissioner under the British regime, and served on various committees overseeing Singapore’s
economic recovery. As a diplomat, he served as High Commissioner to Malaysia
in 1966 during a very difficult time of Singapore-Malaysia relations. As a civic
leader, Dr. Lien fought for political rights for immigrants. In 1957, he became
one of the first immigrants to be given Singapore citizenship.
As a business leader, he was the youngest person ever elected president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. As a banker, Dr. Lien showed vision, flair, ambition and grit – and created one of the founding banks of Singapore, the Overseas Union Bank (OUB). When the 280-metre, 60-storey flagship OUB Centre opened in 1988, it was one of the tallest buildings in the world. This dream building project had taken him 40 years to realise. As a hotelier, Dr. Lien opened the Mandarin Hotel in 1972 and made it into an icon of the Singapore hotel industry.
In 1980, Dr. Lien donated almost half of his wealth to set up The Lien Foundation to help the needy and deprived in society. He had aspirations for “our younger generation to strive for a better future for our nation”. In many ways, Dr. Lien has blazed the trail for the Foundation to follow.
As a Chinese saying goes, “When a tiger dies, he leaves his skin; when a man dies, he leaves his name.”
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