Leong benefits from OUM's flexibility - NST

"NO mountain is too high. If you have the passion to achieve your goals, nothing or no one can stop you," says Leong Mun Chak, who graduated with a PhD in Information Technology at Open University Malaysia's (OUM) 10th Convocation recently.

At 44, Leong is not only a seasoned professional but also an educationist who believes that learning, or higher learning to be exact, is important to one's growth and development.

"I make it a personal commitment to constantly upgrade my knowledge and skills," says the father of three daughters who has a Master's of Science in Information Technology for Manufacture from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. He also holds the globally recognised Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Like many others, Leong had his own hurdles to overcome on his quest to attain a doctorate degree.

In fact, his enrolment in OUM marked his third attempt at pursuing a PhD.

Prior to this, he had enrolled in two other universities.

"I was unable to continue my studies at the time due to heavy work and family commitments," he says.

OUM gave him the flexibility he needed to balance his studies, work and family life.

"The risk of giving up midway this time around was near to zero. I was very much at ease with the pace provided by the part-time nature of the programme, as well as OUM's approach to open and distance learning," he says.

Another setback for him was when midway through the programme, he was left with no supervisor who was well-versed in his research area.

However, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Dr. Leong Mun Chak emerged as the only PhD graduate at the OUM 10th Convocation

YABhg Tun Jeanne Abdullah delivering her speech

OUM held its 10th convocation from 18 June to 20 June 2011. 4356 graduates received their scrolls from the Chancellor of the university, YABhg Tun Jeanne Abdullah and Pro-Chancellor, YBhg Tan Sri Azman Hashim.

Leong Mun Chak

Dr Leong Mun Chak receiving his scroll from Tun Chancellor

Only 1 PhD graduate was conferred during this time around. Dr. Leong Mun Chak graduated with the PhD in IT, the first in OUM. His research is about automatically recognizing a painting which has been photographed or scanned digitally to extract relevant textual information of the painting from the painting database.

The pioneer batch of PhD graduates. From left: Dr. Patrick Wong, Dr. Baljinder Singh, Dr. Lum, Dr. Sia, Dr. Richard Ng, Dr. Wong and Dr. Aminah

According to Dr. Leong he was motivated by his peers who had already obtained their PhD. During the 9th convocation, 7 students became OUM's first batch of graduates who received their PhD in BA and Education.

According to Dr. Leong, the recognition process uses a new mathematical wavelet technique which is able to digitally encode a painting into a very small size called an index. This allows very fast recognition of the painting.

Dr Leong delivering his speech

Video clip of part of Dr Leong's speech Part 1:



Video clip of part of Dr Leong's speech Part 2:



Dr. Leong was given the honor to deliver the valedictorian speech on behalf of the graduates. In his speech, he thanked OUM for the opportunity to earn his PhD. He urged fellow graduates to climb the mountain of OUM if they intent to climb another mountain after this.