Vviewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/1592761.1592775
interview
an interview with Ping Fu
Ping Fu, CEO of the digital shape sampling and processing company Geomagic,
discusses her background, achievements, and challenges managing a company
during a period of dynamic growth.
of the abduction. It was a life of pain
and torture, sustained only by a strong
will and an imagination that could
conjure up beauty in the darkest of circumstances.
After Mao’s death and the end of
the Cultural Revolution, Fu began her
first formal education at age 18. She
earned a literature degree and pursued
further studies in journalism. Unfortunately, her inquisitive mind was not
welcomed in her native country: Her
reporting about the killing of baby girls
in China was published in a leading
Shanghai newspaper, leading to international outrage, imprisonment, and
deportation.
PiNg Fu, ChairMaN and CEO of Geomagic, envisions a future populated by small- and medium-sized compa- nies empowered by digital
design and distribution—where even
a two-person company or an individual
in a remote location can share their innovations with the rest of the world.
Geomagic (see http://www.geomag-
ic.com) is a leading company in the
industry category called digital shape
sampling and processing (DSSP).
DSSP describes technologies that
close the loop between physical products and their digital representations.
It is fundamentally changing the way
products are made, driving a shift
from mass manufacturing to mass
customization.
In selecting her as Entrepreneur of
the Year in 2005, Inc. magazine praised
Fu as a “visionary” and said “she’s
leading a modern industrial revolution
that will make customization cheap
and outsourcing obsolete, and forever
change the way things get made—from
turbines to artificial hearts.”
Vision by necessity
Growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, vision for Fu was not
merely an asset, but a tool for survival.
She was born in Nanjing, but raised
by an aunt and uncle in a suburb of
Shanghai. Her life changed dramatically at age seven, when she was taken
away from her home and family by
Red Guards. She spent more than a
decade in captivity with her sister,
who was three years old at the time
Dream Becomes Reality
Fu came to the U.S. in 1981, enroll-ing at the University of New Mexico to
study comparative literature. A year
later, her life took a turn when she decided to pursue a computer science degree at the University of California-San
Diego. After graduation, she worked in
a series of jobs with increasing responsibilities. Although shy in demeanor, a
restless intellect kept her thinking of
new ways to apply technology.
While at Bell Labs, she led the development of data mining and ISDN
digital switch software, the technology
components that make digital telephony possible. As Director of Visualiza-
