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Meet Singapore’s
Tony Stark
By Farhan Shah
He’s been hailed as a
visionary maverick while
others might think he
is a little too eccentric.
Lim Seng is unruffled; he
follows the beat of his own
drum, whether it comes to
parenting or launching a
Singaporean into space.
Lim Seng is the epitome of the global
citizen, having left his mark on almost
every continent on the planet, save for
perhaps Antarctica. And even so, it
might only be a matter of time before
the coldest landmass on earth bears
his boot print.
However, despite Lim’s nomadic
lifestyle, his voice still has the
reassuring Singaporean twang
and his speech is peppered with
euphemisms and colloquialisms that
only a born and bred local would be
able to fully understand.
His passion for the country and
her people is apparent even in his
aspirations. Lim is the founder and
managing director of IN.Genius
(short for Innovation.Genius), a
high-technology start-up that is
focused on solving world problems.
Early this year, the small firm was
in the news after Lim made a bold
promise that was met with much
scepticism; he wanted to launch
the first Singaporean into space by
2015. Today, Lim and his crack team
of highly dedicated scientists and
engineers are starting to see their
vision crystallised – last September,
they successfully launched their
eighth and final unmanned test
flight. Yet, despite the giant strides
IN.Genius has made to achieve its
space goal, Lim still has a myriad of
doubters and naysayers, all of whom
believe that he’ll fall short of his aim.
And sadly, most of them are
Singaporeans.
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Family & Life • Feb 2014
None of these bother Lim though.
After all, he’s had to battle
stereotypes and topple stacked odds
all his life. And he’s won each time,
assembling an impressive body of
work along the way. He drafted the
Unmanned Technology Master Plan
for Singapore, designed the first
UAV simulator in the world, set up
Singapore’s first offshore Defence
Technology Office for Europe in
Paris and more. A man of his calibre
and talent does not go unnoticed,
so when Lim decided to test his
mettle in the private sector, a host of
huge technology firms offered him
a position. Relishing the challenge,
Lim joined the European Aeronautic
Defence and Space Company (EADS),
becoming a senior advisor and vicepresident for two different divisions in
the company.
Becoming one of the rare top-ranking
Asians in a European company led
to some very interesting situations.
“I’ve been mistaken for the driver
or the tourist guide every time I’ve
led a high-powered delegation for a
meeting,” says Lim, chuckling as he
shares his different hilarious travel
experiences, a lot of which involved
overturning conventional stereotypes.
Interestingly, Lim has been described
as Singapore’s version of British
business magnate Richard Branson
by a few local newspapers, but a
better and more accurate description
for him would be Singapore’s reallife Tony Stark instead. Just like the
Iron Man’s alter ego, Lim possesses
a brilliant science and engineering
brain that easily comprehends
concepts such as neutron flux and
Yet, we rarely see Singaporeans
on the world stage creating
something both extraordinary and
brave, like my space programme.
When it comes to actually doing
something, I must say that we lack
courage in making things happen.
Singaporeans have extremely
capable minds, but we lack the guts
and the heart to be world-beaters.