Former IDA chief, Webvisions CEO win S'pore accolade

SINGAPORE--Five individuals have been recognized by the Singapore Computer Society for their personal achievements as well as contributions to the country's ICT industry.

Among the recipients of the IT Leader Awards 2008 is Chan Yeng Kit, permanent secretary at Singapore's Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts. Chan was named the Person of the Year, for his contributions as chief executive of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) from 2005 to 2007. During his tenure at IDA, he spearheaded the Intelligent Nation 2015 masterplan and played a role in shaping initiatives such as Wireless@SG.

Describing his IDA appointment as being in the "right place at the right time", Chan said that the government enjoyed a strong partnership with industry bodies and the private sector. That led to ideas consistently coming forth from the ICT sector.

Roger Lim, co-founder and CEO of Webvisions, was named Young Professional of the Year. From a start-up of three, Lim helped grow the Web hosting provider to an organization of over 100 employees, with a customer base of more than 20,000 in the Asia-Pacific region.

In an e-mail interview, Lim told ZDNet Asia the company went for alternatives whenever business outlook dimmed, such as during the dotcom crash in 2001. "We actively developed our hosting services and offerings throughout a few Asian countries...[and] focused on developing premium services such as managed hosting products that required substantial expertise and management that even today, few other hosting providers offer," he explained.

The winners of the IT Leaders Awards 2008 are:

Person of the Year--Chan Yeng Kit, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts
Young Professional of the Year--Roger Lim, co-founder and CEO of Webvisions
Hall of Fame--Wee Tew Lim, principal of Spear Consultancy
IT Youth--Travis Ho and Lua Rui Ping