ST photojournalist Kevin Lim wins NTU alumni award for Trump-Kim summit snaps
Straits Times chief photojournalist Kevin Lim was the only Singaporean photographer to get a shot of former United States president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their historic summit in Singapore.
The photo he took at the meeting in 2018 made it to the cover of Time magazine, while another photo of the two leaders, captured in an unscripted moment at Capella Singapore, where the summit was held, was picked as one of Time’s Top 100 Photos of 2018.
Chosen as the pool photographer for Singapore’s media, and despite stiff competition from foreign photojournalists at the summit, Mr Lim had his photos widely distributed, including to international news agencies such as Reuters and the Associated Press.
For his achievements, Mr Lim, who graduated in 2009 with a degree in communication studies, received the Nanyang Alumni Achievement Award, said Nanyang Technological University (NTU) on Nov 17.
Mr Lim, 41, said: “The most fulfilling part of being an alumnus is knowing that, through the achievements and sharing of experiences by fellow alumni, future batches of NTU graduates are in good hands.
“They can wholeheartedly enjoy the process of learning and discovering, and be driven by the passion which will eventually take them to where they envision themselves.”
The photojournalist, who has been with ST for 14 years, has covered elections in Malaysia and Indonesia, the destruction brought by Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban in 2013, the aftermath in 2015 of the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 disaster, and the Rio Olympics in Brazil in 2016, among other events.
At a ceremony held at NTU on Nov 17, awards were also presented to Tan Sri Datuk Seri Mohd Zuki Ali, Mr Ng Siew Quan, Ms Suman Mishra, Mr Kevin Goh Wei Ming and Dr Avishek Kumar.
A total of 26 alumni were honoured at the awards ceremony.
Malaysia’s top civil servant, Mr Mohd Zuki, 61, received the Nanyang Distinguished Alumni Award for his contributions to public service.
He graduated with a Master of Business Administration from Nanyang Business School in 1999 and was appointed as the 15th Chief Secretary to the Government of Malaysia on Jan 1, 2020.
His leadership was instrumental in steering Malaysia’s civil service through the challenging early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially when the Movement Control Order was introduced in March 2020 to combat the wave of Covid-19 infections in the country, said NTU.
Singapore’s first chess grandmaster in two decades and the nation’s fourth grandmaster, Mr Kevin Goh Wei Ming was one of seven to receive the Nanyang Outstanding Young Alumni award.
Mr Goh, 40, who graduated with a degree in accountancy in 2007, is an eight-time national chess champion and three-time South-east Asian Games bronze medallist.
He is now the chief executive of the Singapore Chess Federation. Under his leadership, it partnered with the Singapore Prison Service to launch Chess for Freedom, an initiative that uses chess as a rehabilitation tool for inmates, in August.
The response was reported to have exceeded expectations, with more than 30 inmates signing up and even asking to double the number of weekly sessions.
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