Singapore and NUS mourned the loss of Dr Lee Kum Tatt on 1 June 2008. We pay homage to a remarkable alumnus who not only wowed us with his scientific achievements but also humbled us with his pearls of wisdom.
In one of his blog entries, dated 25 October 2007, alumnus Dr Lee Kum Tatt wrote about what makes a great school: “The founding vision of the school, the building of its tradition, instilling into the teachers and students the right spirit, dedicated and great principals and teachers, good students to produce great alumni.”
And what a great alumnus Dr Lee had been himself! The winner of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the NUS Faculty of Science in 2005 was always active in the activities and initiatives organised by the NUS Department of Chemistry and NUS in general, lending his utmost support to his alma mater whenever possible.
As he was known to have said: “The world does not care for what we lack, it's interested only in what we can offer.” Dr Lee has offered much to Singapore and to the world indeed, so much so that his passing away at age 81 has impacted not only the scientific community but many individuals who have had the honour of knowing him personally. He was a man of science of who could spout philosophy just as competently as he could invent new chemical processes and was noted by many for incorporating scientific analogies into his descriptions of life.
Dr Lee rose from humble beginnings, survived the war during the 1940s, secured a Raffles College Scholarship in the face of poverty and finished in style with a PhD from the University of Malaya in 1955. He then went on to immerse himself wholly in research for the noble cause of the betterment of the community, acknowledging that he was happy to repay through his life’s work the debt of having had the opportunity to learn and be educated.
The result of this included the creation of a remarkable local souvenir in 1976 – the RISIS orchid, which is a 24-carat gold-plated actual orchid - and facilitating the creation of the iconic Singapore Science Centre in 1970.
The social-centered approach that he adopted in the course of his work as a scientist, researcher, academic and sometimes even an entrepreneur, had led him to take on groundbreaking appointments such as Founding Chairman of the Singapore Science Council, Singapore Standards Council and the Singapore Institute of Standards & Industrial Research (SISIR). And in the course of introducing the RISIS orchid to the world, he also founded RISIS Co Pte Ltd which is still going strong 31 years after its inception.
One of the rare “pre-65ers” to maintain a blog, some of Dr Lee’s infinite wisdom was immortalised on the Internet recently inside 85 posts that were made over the past year since April 2007. In his candid dialogue with his online readers, he was more than willing to share his personal experiences and philosophies. The humility was none more apparent than in his opening prologue where he acknowledged that he was able to “improve my life through this one decision of my parents” – that of struggling to support his education in spite of sheer financial difficulty for the family.
This tenacity which was imbued in him at the earliest stages of his life was evident throughout his career in all his struggles and accomplishments. For example, as he developed the RISIS orchid and facilitated the Science Centre, these ideas were largely dismissed as flights of fantasy. However, his positive mindset and personal belief endured those doubts and enabled his endeavours to emerge sensational success stories instead.
And now, as we bid farewell to an exemplary individual who has certainly lived no ordinary life, there is no doubt that Dr Lee’s legacy will live on in many aspects of the Singaporean culture.
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