The Honourable Zhou Tie-nong, Vice Chairman, Standing
Committee of the National People’s Congress presided over the event.
The honour was awarded jointly by the World Chinese Venture Model
Association (WCVMA) and the China Association for Promoting
International Economic and Technical Cooperation, which is a subsidiary
of the China Association for Science and Technology.
Two other categories of titles were also awarded in
Beijing: The “World Top 10 Enterprising Model” and the “World Top 100
Enterprising Star”. In all, three Australians of Chinese descent were
honored, one in each of the three categories. Prof. Loo was the sole
academic to win the award.
To commemorate the occasion, Chinese authorities published a
Biographic-Philatelic album which featured the life stories of the top
60 awardees, each complemented by two pieces of officially issued
personalized postage stamps.
Prof. Loo was born in 1944 in Ipoh in the then British
Malaya. He entered AIT in 1966 and earned his MEng in
Structural Engineering in 1968. The AIT graduate then went on to obtain
his PhD from Dundee University, Scotland in 1971. Prof. Loo is married,
and has two children.
The following is an excerpt from the award’s commemorative
album: “From a Chinese-educated schoolboy in a British Malayan
backwater, Yew-Chaye Loo has become one of Australia’s
most senior and prominent structural engineering academics.”
At Griffith University Prof. Loo is an international authority
on concrete structures. His research now includes road and bridge
assets management, in particular the effective use of bridge management
systems for major networks.
