11 December 2025 – [Talk] Penang: The Land of Inventors

[Talk] Penang – The Land of Inventors

Date: Thursday, 11 December 2025
Time: 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm
Venue: Conference Hall, Penang Institute
Speakers: Prof. Patricia Chung, Cheah Bok Eng & Teoh Hui Kuun
Moderator: Dato’ Dr Ooi Kee Beng

Synopsis

Penang has long been recognized as a hub of innovation, creativity, and industrial excellence. To celebrate and advance this spirit, the public panel forum “Penang: The Land of Inventors” brings together distinguished inventors born in Penang who have made remarkable contributions across industries. This engaging dialogue will uncover the journeys of inventors—their challenges, breakthroughs, and defining moments that shaped their path to success. Panelists will share the key drivers, secrets, and resilient mindsets that empower individuals to transform ideas into tangible inventions that bring the world forward.

The forum will also highlight the critical role of intellectual property (IP) rights in safeguarding innovation, guiding participants through the essentials of IP awareness, protection, and commercialization. An experienced IP practitioner will demystify the processes and emphasize why IP is not just a legal safeguard, but a strategic enabler for inventors and entrepreneurs alike.

Attendees will gain practical insights and actionable takeaways on how to embark on their own inventing and IP creation journey. Whether you are a student, professional, or aspiring innovator, this forum offers inspiration, knowledge, and tools to strengthen Penang’s position as a vibrant cradle of invention.

About Panelists

Prof. Patricia Chung is the Founding & Managing Partner of Chung Chambers, with over 17 years of expertise in Intellectual Property (IP) law, valuation, and commercialisation. She is President of the International Intellectual Property Commercialisation Council (IIPCC) Malaysia Chapter and Founding President of the Intangible Assets Commercialisation & Strategy Association (IACSA). A Certified Patent Valuation Analyst and registered IP agent, she actively advises on patent strategy, technology transfer, and IP-backed financing. Prof. Chung works closely with Malaysia’s semiconductor and E&E industries, bridging legal, innovation, and policy frameworks to unlock engineeringdriven growth. She also serves as Independent Non-Executive Director of Custom Food Holding Berhad.

Cheah Bok Eng works as a signal integrity engineer and an engineering manager in a renowned semiconductor company. He has been working in the semiconductor industry since graduating from Universiti Sains Malaysia in 2005. He has authored over 40 technical publications and holds >240 issued patents related to semiconductor innovation. Bok Eng is a 5-time recipient of the prestigious Intel Top Inventor Award. He made his way into the Malaysia Book of Records as the Inventor with the Most Worldwide Patent Grants since 2022. He is an Associate Fellow of the ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology (AAET) and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He also serves as a council member of the Malaysia TRIZ Innovation Association (MyTRIZ). Bok Eng has also authored 2 books titled “Innovation Unleashed” and “Trailblazer Unleashed”. His unwavering dedication to promoting innovation has impacted >5,000 students and professionals.

Teoh Hui Kuun is a seasoned Innovation Champion with over 10 years of experience in the medical devices and home appliances industries. She leads innovation initiatives at the Centre of Excellence and represents her organization in the ISO56000 Innovation Management Committee. Hui Kuun is a strategic, customer-centric innovation leader with expertise in front-end strategy, R&D project leadership, and medical device development. As an inventor with 13 granted patents, she has led over 100 ideation sessions and mentor teams in creative problem-solving and pitching.

About the Moderator

Dato’ Dr Ooi Kee Beng (黄基明博士) has been studying the process of nation-building in Asia and analyzing Malaysian politics over the last three decades. He was appointed Executive Director of Penang Institute in 2017.

He received his Ph.D. in Sinology from Stockholm University, Sweden. Before returning to the region, he worked at Ericsson Electronics in Sweden for 22 years during the heyday of that company’s mobile phone era, while studying in Stockholm University. Courses that he taught at Stockholm included Chinese History, Chinese Philosophy and General Knowledge of China.

His major academic interests were in Language Philosophy and Ancient Chinese Political and Strategic Thinking. He joined Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (now ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute) in 2004, becoming its Deputy Director from 2011 to 2017. He writes regular opinion pieces for regional and global mass media on Malaysian matters and regional matters. These have been compiled in seven separate volumes. Many of these works can be accessed at (www.wikibeng.com). He was Visiting Associate Professor at the City University of Hong Kong (2009-2012); Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Southeast Asian Studies (2009-2011); He is the Founder-Editor of Penang Monthly and ISSUES (Penang Institute) and ISEAS Perspective (ISEAS). He is also Series Editor for Trends in Southeast Asia (ISEAS).

Event Summary

On 11 December 2025, Penang Institute hosted a public forum featuring distinguished inventors born in Penang whose work has contributed significantly to positioning Malaysian innovation on the global stage. Rather than celebrating invention as individual brilliance alone, the event grounded the social, institutional, and cultural conditions that enable inventorship to emerge and endure.

Cheah Bok Eng, Malaysia’s most prolific inventor with over 240 granted patents, reflected on a career shaped less by early ambition than by circumstance and environment. He shared that becoming an inventor was never part of his youthful plan. Instead, invention grew organically from being embedded in workplaces that valued mentorship, encouraged the sharing of knowledge, and nurtured a supportive organisational culture. For Cheah, inventorship is not a solitary pursuit but a collective process, sustained by guidance, trust, and openness over time.

From the perspective of industrial practice, Teoh Hui Kuun drew attention to the disciplined nature of innovation in sectors such as medical devices and home appliances. She emphasised that creativity alone is insufficient, invention must be supported by structured ideation, customer-centric thinking, and effective facilitation. Innovation, she argued, is rarely the result of sudden inspiration. Rather, it is a sustained and methodical effort, requiring systems that allow diverse teams to explore ideas freely while remaining grounded in real-world needs and constraints.

Addressing a commonly misunderstood dimension of innovation, Professor Patricia Chung turned the discussion to intellectual property. She acknowledged the discomfort many innovators feel towards IP law, but reframed legal tools such as non-disclosure agreements and patent strategies as mechanisms that enable collaboration. By clearly defining boundaries and expectations, IP frameworks help to build trust, allowing inventors to work together more openly without fear of future conflict. In this sense, IP becomes a condition that supports creativity but not its adversary.

Taken together, the discussion offered no simple formula for producing inventors. Instead, it presented inventorship as something deeply embedded in culture, institutions, and everyday practices of working together. The panel underscored that while infrastructure and investment matter, innovation also depends on quieter, less visible elements: mentorship, openness, and an acceptance that invention, like many meaningful human endeavours, is often untidy, gradual, and collective.