Founder's Message

We believe that the 21st Century is the era of Asia, one where we will see high growth for many decades to come. Whilst this is great news for companies and individuals alike, it does place great pressure on our most basic asset, our talent pool. This environment of high, and continued, growth gives little breathing space for employers to slowly train and for employees to slowly learn on the job.

Employers today lament that too many graduates are ill-prepared and not work-ready for the challenges of today’s environment. While many excel in theory, few have the practical knowledge or relevant skills to satisfy the demands required to meet the changing and rising expectations. Even fewer have the constitution to readily excel in an increasingly multi-cultural environment where both your customers and colleagues hail from many different nationalities.

IAB was founded by a team of industry practitioners and experienced professionals who view education not as an end, but as a start for an enriching career. IAB’s goal is to help create a pool of “work-ready and world-ready” professionals who will have been immersed in an education environment that mirrors the real world as closely as possible.

To achieve this, IAB will launch its School of Hospitality and Tourism as its inaugural course. Students in this course will break out of their comfort zone and be exposed to learning and living in a full resort environment in order to experience the breadth and depth of this industry. This experience not only immerses our students in the complete cycle of tourism and hospitality – from travel, to hotel management, event management, theme parks and even golf club management – but also builds their international perspective, soft skills and confidence that are required in this industry. IAB will be working with the resorts and clubs in Bintan to facilitate year-long internships and hands-on training for our students.

Most importantly, we will strive to create a pool of talent which is extremely comfortable in a multi-cultural working and living environment. To do this, IAB will essentially be an “international school” where foreign students will be the dominant population. To further ensure diversity of cultures, no one nationality will form the majority for the student mix.

From learning to live and study on-campus in multi-cultural dormitories, to developing problem solving skills in the work-environment through our internship programs, and with guidance from our industry practitioners academics, we are confident that we can develop “work-ready and world-ready” professionals who will hit their jobs running and bring pride and honour to our Asian workforce.

We welcome you to join us in this exciting journey.

Chia Tek Yew

Chairman & Founder