An international and local cultural flavor marked the 28th Anniversary of World Scientific Annual Dinner and Dance celebrated at The Fullerton Hotel on February 27, 2009.

Appropriately themed as "World Scientific - Around the World", an international flair permeated the whole evening, and was reflected in the décor of the ballroom, the food and wine choices, as well as the rich tapestry of ethnic and international fashions decked out by the guests and staff of World Scientific.

Among the distinguished guests, mainly of academics and professors, were Dr Cham Tao Soon, the former president of Nanyang Technological University, Professor Duan Jin-Chuan, director of NUS Risk Management Institute, and Dr Zhu Qi, the cultural counselor from the Embassy of the People's Republic of China.

Dr K K Phua - The Visionary Chairman

The evening's formalities began in the ballroom as the 250-strong audience were seated comfortably in anticipation of a speech by Dr K K Phua, Chairman of World Scientific and Imperial College Press. His speech delivery broadly outlined World Scientific's immediate goal and publication strategy.

Dr Phua recounted that the inspiration sparked by the late Professor Abdus Salam, Professor C N Yang - both Physics Nobel Laureates - and a few other eminent scientists 28 years ago was the motivating force behind the establishment of World Scientific as an international scientific publishing house with its base in the Asia-Pacific.

From a very simple and clear mission and objective in the beginning, World Scientific has emerged as one of the most active international scientific and academic publishing houses with an annual publication output of more than 400 new book titles and over 110 journals in the disciplines of Science, Technology, Medicine, and Business and Management.

Dr Phua was positive that World Scientific will continue to perform well despite the current global recession. This was also the optimism conveyed in the opening statement of Managing Director Mdm Doreen Liu who rationalized that, being in the knowledge-based economy, the potential for growth is going strong.

Dr Phua cast his vision into numbers and figures - in the next two years , his goal for World Scientific is to increase the number of new book titles annually to 500, and to launch 10 new journals per year; and by the end of five years, he aims to double the number of new book titles to 1,000 per year and publish a total of 200 to 250 journals per year. Dr Phua also unveiled his ambitious plan to intensively develop World Scientific's publication programs in economics, social sciences and the humanities, with special subject focus on China. His bold vision - World Scientific to become one of the top three publishers of books on China, alongside with Harvard and Cambridge University Presses.

Mdm Doreen Liu — Business at Her Fingertips

The business and e-publication aspects were presented by Managing Director Mdm Doreen Liu as she announced in a positive tone that World Scientific registers a growth of 10% in 2008. She pointed out "the increase in our revenue was mainly from ebooks and e-journals, of which ebook sales increased from almost nothing to half a million, while the e-journals increased by more than 33%." Reiterating the importance of Internet publishing in the current digital age, Mdm Liu navigated the audience through a seamless reader experience of the World Scientific ebook and e-journal portals. She made a proposition to guests and staff that she is in search of an innovative measure or technology that could contravene unauthorized password sharing for access to digital content.

Mr Max Phua — The Creative Strategist