June 3rd, 2012
UBC Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
Guest lecturer: Kenan Malik
About the speaker:
Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, as well as a Senior Visting Fellow at the Department of Political, International and Policy Studies at the University of Surrey. Mr. Malik has written four books: The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society (1996); Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us About Human Nature (2002), Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate (2008) and From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy (2010).
The Milton K. Wong Lecture is held in June at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia and broadcast nationally on the CBC Radio One Program Ideas as part of Canada’s Multiculturalism Day celebrations.
In June 2011, the Laurier Institution, with the support of George Burke from Blake, Casells & Graydon LLP, organized a dinner to honour Milton Wong. At the dinner, friends and former colleagues of Milton generously contributed to an endowment for the lecture. Tribal DDB Canada, the integrated digital and social marketing group of DDB Canada, has also generously donated its services to develop a companion website to the Milton K. Wong Lecture. The purpose of the Milton K. Wong Lecture and website is to advance and disseminate knowledge about cultural diversity in Canada and to contribute to the development of pluralism in Canada and around the world. The inaugural Milton K. Wong Lecture will be held in June 2012. For more information about the Milton K. Wong Lecture please contact Farid Rohani, Chair of the Laurier Board, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Milton K. Wong
Throughout his professional career, Mr. Wong showed remarkable business acumen combined with a strong sense of social responsibility. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, he founded financial management firm M.K. Wong and Associates in 1980, and continued with them until they were absorbed and recreated into HSBC Global Asset Management in 1996. He is recognized as the co-founder of the Portfolio Management Program at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, where he became an inspirational mentor for a generation of young entrepreneurs.
Mr. Wong’s vision of a Canada where people of all cultures can thrive led him to co-found The Laurier Institution as well as the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival. He sat on countless boards and served two terms as Chancellor of Simon Fraser University from 1999 to 2005. Mr. Wong was instrumental in raising funds for and supporting organizations such as the BC Cancer Foundation, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Science World and the YWCA.
With a passion for cultivating new ideas, Mr. Wong was a founding investor and mentor in a number of start-up companies including Nurse Next Door, ALI Technologies Inc. and Day 4 Energy. He played a major role in moving forward many First Nations initiatives and helped to structure land claim and business partnerships for groups across BC, in particular the Nishga’a Treaty. A lifelong supporter of sustainability, Mr. Wong worked with environmental groups to protect sensitive ecosystems in Canada and worldwide
“There is no better way to acknowledge Milton Wong’s outstanding 40-year career, one that was strongly focused on the balance between business success and social responsibility, than by renaming the Laurier Institution’s Multicultural Lecture in his honor.”
You can find more information about Kenan Malik at his website http://www.kenanmalik.com/ , where you can follow Mr. Malik's interesting news feed and others lectures and broadcast by Mr. Malik. A personal bio by Kenan Malik can be found here as well: http://www.kenanmalik.com/top/cv.html
The UBC – Laurier Institution Multiculturalism Lectures are signature events hosted by The Laurier Institution in partnership with the University of British Columbia and CBC Radio One. Since 2004, these annual lectures have featured guest speakers who are leading thinkers and visionaries in the field of multiculturalism.