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Graduation Speech - July 5, 2006
This space has been dedicated to the speech that Elie Antoun (Class of 1974) has given as his Address to the graduating class of Saint Joseph School. [July 5, 2006]
Address to the graduating class of Saint Joseph School July 5, 2006, Cornet Chahwan, Lebanon
Good evening!
Members of the graduating class of 2006 congratulations on achieving this wonderful threshold. You have successfully arrived at the doorstep of greater achievements as you get ready to go to college and to even better things in your future!
Parents, grandparents, and families of the graduating class of 2006, and the faculty and staff of Saint Joseph’s, congratulations to you for successfully shepherding this group of young ladies and gentlemen through this critical stage of their lives. You can take great pride in your work and I know that this class will reward you for your efforts!
When I received the invitation to speak at this commencement from Monsignor Zaidan and Tony Feghali, president of the SJS Alumni a series of thoughts raced through my mind the first of which was: “Why me? They must be drunk!”
Then I thought: “Okay if they are not drunk they must be desperate! The first forty nine people on the list must have turned them down!!”
Then I went on the offensive: “I must accept the invitation before they change their mind!”
More recently I became concerned about how long this talk should be. While seeking inputs at the Alumni dinner a couple of nights ago I stumbled onto the answer. I learned that you are still anxiously awaiting the results of the Terminal exams. Well, that did it: what better way to pass the time than to listen to me!! So sit back and relax because we will be here for a while!
But all kidding aside, it truly is an honor to address you today!
Ladies and gentlemen of the graduating class of 2006, you are leaving here with two significant advantages that will serve you tremendously in your future: you matriculated at Saint Joseph’s School, and you are Lebanese!!
I am grateful for the circumstances that led me and my brothers to Saint Joseph’s. I was born in Nigeria which was still a British colony back then. Yes, as you have figured out by now, I am ancient. I am a member of the 1974 class of SJS. Our birthplace meant that we were destined to receive an English-based education.
In 1963, there were only a handful of these schools in Lebanon, one of which was a start-up called Saint Joseph’s School that had been established by Bishop Elias Farah. His and His Excellency Monsignor Roland abou Jaoude’s vision, motivation and benevolence made our parents’ decision easy.
The Saint Joseph advantage starts with a great education in a tremendous environment. For many years now you have been absorbing knowledge from teachers who truly care about you and who are held to the highest standards. You have been nurtured by a faculty and administration that is unfailingly dedicated to raising young adults who are anchored in the highest moral, spiritual, and emotional standards. Your first realization after leaving Saint Joseph’s will be how well indoctrinated and prepared you are in taking on the responsibility to make the world a better place!! That is SJS!
Because of Saint Joseph’s you leave here with an openness of mind and heart, an independence of thought, and a deep respect and compassion for your fellow human beings. And most of all, it is here that you have forged the lifetime friendships that will see you through thick and thin, and good and bad! Thirty two years after graduating, my closest friends are still the guys that I grew up with here. It does not matter that some of us may not see each other for years at a time. When we do meet those years melt away and it is as if we have been together the whole while.
The second of your advantages is that you are Lebanese!!
Lebanon is at the crossroads of East and West. This same geography that has been the bane of our existence is also the fundamental reason that the Lebanese are very successful in the world. Growing up in Lebanon at the intersection of culture, religion and history your eyes are already wide open to the rest of the world. This has allowed you to develop a refined ability to comprehend issues from multiple perspectives combined with an innate capacity to strike the right balance between them.
You can strike that balance because you are independent and you possess a healthy love and respect for family and community. You are able to successfully adapt to and assimilate into any society while maintaining your inherent Lebanese values. You possess a great academic education balanced with a healthy dose of street smarts. You can move seamlessly between countries, cultures, languages and mindsets.
These special characteristics, our Lebanese-ness if you will, came into particular focus for me when we lived in Japan. The differences between the United States and Japan were striking. The powerful individualism of the US sharply contrasted with the group mentality in Japan; the shoot-from-the-hip, we’ll figure it out later approach in the US, compared to the endless but effective consensus-building process in Japan. I found it effortless find the right balance and to bridge the gaps between the two cultures. I attribute a major portion of that success to being Lebanese.
Growing up Lebanese means you speak three languages. I cannot overemphasize the value of this advantage. Well if you are like me, maybe you can speak two-and-a-half languages. For those of us from SJS there is this little nuisance called French that we had to deal with occasionally! Because of this tri-lingual capability you are already ahead of ninety nine percent of the rest of the world.
Learning to speak a language well means getting comfortable with its idioms and colloquialisms. With this fluency you are getting a free education into its culture and history. Also, as you fluently express the same feeling in three different ways you switch back and forth in a manner that develops your mental capacities and enhances your adaptability in ways that are different from learning other subjects!
So you are superbly positioned to take advantage of the enormous opportunities that lie ahead of you. These opportunities are created by three fundamental characteristics about the world: it is imperfect, it is fast changing, and its problems are now borderless!
An imperfect world carries with it huge problems which are exacerbated by an accelerating and unpredictable pace of change. This is further compounded by the increasingly borderless nature of those problems. This creates a limitless demand for innovative solutions which will also be borderless. The cycle of opportunity to make the world a better place is endless and it is becoming more democratic.
And to top it all the tools that are at your disposal to tackle these complicated problems are more sophisticated and powerful than ever!
With all its deficiencies, the world today is a better place than it has ever been in history. More people can put bread on the table, educate their children and look to a brighter future. More people are interacting with each other and more of the world’s problems are being tackled than ever before. And ever so painfully more people are acquiring a better understanding of and gaining more compassion for each other than ever before! And all of this is happening at a faster pace than ever before.
But far too many people are still left out of this process and your opportunity lies in expanding the circle to increase the number of people who can become part of this positive cycle. Your prospects for contributing innovative solutions are limitless: in technology, in politics and diplomacy, in economics, education, social sciences, entertainment, and the law. From my personal experience I can envision mammoth opportunities in the use of technology to solve global problems in energy, health and life sciences, and the environment, as well as to improve communications between people.
In the high technology world I marvel at the accomplishments of the past twenty five years and I am amazed at what is still to come. I have been involved in the semiconductor industry since 1980. At Genesis Microchip which is a microcosm of the changes in high tech, we are leaders in the revolution that is upending the television industry as it transforms from bulky tube TV’s to sleek and spectacular flat televisions.
In addition, I occasionally advise entrepreneurs and venture capital investors who seek my input with regards to their ideas for products and technologies. I am amazed at the breadth of new ideas that are percolating out there and that will revolutionize old and new paradigms. The pace of change is accelerating and the most successful people will be those who adapt the fastest.
As an example, during the twenty five years between the first product I was involved with and today’s comparable product in the semiconductor industry we are delivering thirty two thousand times the information in a much smaller package and at less than one percent of the cost. During that time the semiconductor industry has undergone massive changes. In 1980, there were about two dozen semiconductor companies. They were all completely contained in the Silicon Valley and all owned their manufacturing facilities. Most of the jobs were in manufacturing and were held by Americans with a sprinkling of foreign engineers.
Today, there are more than one hundred semiconductor companies in the Valley, almost all of them with a global presence and only one of them owns a manufacturing facility in the Valley. The manufacturing jobs moved to Taiwan, China and other low cost regions. In the same timeframe the semiconductor industry has grown enormously and has created more than one hundred times as many new jobs in product development, technology innovation, and the ubiquitous expansion of technology into fields that never used it before. At Genesis Microchip, only two hundred of our nearly six hundred employees are based in Silicon Valley, with the balance in Toronto, Canada, Bangalore, India, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China. There are twenty eight languages spoken at our headquarters in California. The Genesis profile is not uncommon in our industry.
Finally, you must be thinking “Thank God, he is coming to the end”!
If I may I would like to share with you a few nuggets of guidance that have helped me enormously. I know, you must be thinking “Oh No! Here comes the guidance part, please, please God let it be short”!
Are you kidding? I am not going to let you off so easily.
#1: Be optimistic. The glass is half-full. The overwhelming majority of what goes on in the world today is good, and the part that is not presents great opportunities to make it better. Believe me, as screwed up as this world is (my apologies Monsignor), it is still the best thing we have.
#2: Be thankful for what you have. You already have far more than most people although that is easy to forget. This is especially relevant when you inevitably encounter seemingly insurmountable challenges in your future. Thank God for your blessings and remind yourself that most people in the world are in a far worse position. Problems look far smaller that way.
#3: Be passionate about what you do. The world offers great opportunities. There are bound to be some that stir your passion. Go for it because you only live once. With passion you will perform with joy and creativity. With creativity, you will add value! When you add value, in even the smallest manner, you have made the world a better place!
#4: Set the highest standards for yourself. Aim high because if you do not you will never learn how far you can go. Do not be afraid to fail. A failure is not a failure unless you do not learn from it.
#5: Take the positive action. Up to today’s graduation you have lived a structured life. Most decisions have been made for you. You will now be making your own decisions. Many times the right choice is not obvious. Follow your instincts and do not worry. Take the step that moves you forward and do not look back. You will have the chance to rectify it if it turns out you were wrong. But when it comes to a moral choice there can be no doubt. Make the right moral decision. That decision will be clear. Your upbringing has prepared you well for that!
#6: Learn something new every day. Get the best education that you can afford and make the most out of whatever education you get. Beyond that, the learning process must never end. You have a responsibility to expand your knowledge in every way you can. Do not get comfortable or the world will pass you by. It does not matter what you learn as long as you keep learning. For example, I personally enjoy languages. At Stanford, I learned Japanese and that helped open the door to Japan. Today, I am learning Chinese because I want our customers to feel comfortable dealing with our company. The extra effort shows that I am serious about our relationship.
#7: Surround yourself with the best. Challenge your intellect, your desire, and your conscience. During our time in Japan, I worked closely with the creator of the Sony Playstation. The effort was the most invigorating of my professional career because he is one of the most brilliant and difficult people to work with. That experience was worth it because I knew I was working with one of the true technical visionaries of this era.
#8: Be true to your values. They have survived the test of time and have been enhanced by them. Most of what you have learned in your first eighteen years has been your values. Take your values with you and put them to the test. Interact deeply with other people. You will contribute to them positively and they will do the same for you.
#9: Be good to people: You can never go wrong here. Specifically, be good to the less fortunate than you. Help in anyway you can and do it with all your heart. The smallest action can make the biggest difference. Never look for the reward. It will come when you least expect it and far more than you expect.
Once again it has been a tremendous opportunity to speak to you today. Thank you for listening. I am proud to be an alumnus of Saint Joseph’s and I am proud to be Lebanese. Those feelings have only grown over the years. I am positive that in a few years one of you will stand here representing you all to deliver an even more positive message about Saint Joseph’s, about Lebanon and about the world.
Thank you.
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