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A glass half empty for a fuller mind
May 2009
The glass half empty-glass half full debate has long sorted the pessimists from the optimists. As a metaphor in the quest for knowledge, however, Ramli Puteh says his is always leaning on empty. “I’m always looking for something to fill my mind,” he says.
After a 30-year hiatus from formal education, Ramli was one of the first students to graduate from Swinburne’s Global Leadership Program, which is run in partnership with Northeastern University, Boston.
Earlier this month, Ramli flew to Boston for the official graduation ceremony and the significance of the event was certainly not lost on him. “It was a once in a lifetime experience,” he says. “An acknowledgement of the heart, sweat and soul that I’ve put in over the last two years.”
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether they’re 20 or 80,” he says, quoting care manufacturing pioneer Henry Ford. “Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
Matters of the heart have never been far from his mind. Ramli decided to come to Australia after suffering a heart attack when he was 54. It was the wake up call he had to have, after a busy 25-year-long career with the National Trade Union Congress in Singapore and later establishing the AIN Society, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting inter-racial harmony.
“It made me realise I had to examine the way I was doing things and find a slower pace of life,” he says. “I led a very stressful life, always wanting to make a difference.”
The Global Leadership Program may have been a welcome change of pace from his hectic life in Singapore, but it has only further ignited his desire to make a difference. “We’re all born to be leaders,” he says. “The Global Leadership Program just brings it to the surface – without it, you don’t have the tools or the compass. At Swinburne I’ve learned how to think, how to communicate and how to voice my opinion.”
Since January 2009, Ramli has been working closely with small to medium enterprises on “how to upturn the downturn” as General Manager at the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Now, at the spritely age of 56, he is set to return to Swinburne in July after receiving a full scholarship to commence a PhD in international business. “I had the opportunity to study elsewhere, but I had such a good experience the first time around I wanted to come back.”
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether they’re 20 or 80,” he says, quoting care manufacturing pioneer Henry Ford. “Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
