When I was in grade school, YANG Chen-Ning and LEE Tsung-Dao were my heroes. I had no idea why they won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957, but they did. And they are my fellow Chinese.
Older, and I entered the computer industry. Soon, I learned about and became so proud of Dr. Steve Chen. Imagine my excitement when I met him earlier this year. I couldn’t wait showing off to Amiram and Mike about my new celebrity acquaintance.
This summer, I was a fly on the wall listening to a conversation between Greg Papadopoulos and Dr. Chen. They chatted about old time and old friends like buddies who have not seen each others for a long time. They talked about utility computing, super computer, grid inter-connect, IT industry, China, etc. The conversation was as riveting as mesmerizing. As a bonus, Steve was lost coming to the meeting place and I picked Greg’s brain for almost 40 minutes. That was a very cool day.
Unlike other returnee entrepreneurs, Dr. Steve Chen went directly to started improving villagers’ lives. Steve observed the horrid poverty and decided to fix it with what he does best: creating a modern IT infra-structure for the whole country. His passion and energy are contagious. Few people walked away without an urge to help his cause.
It sounds so simple hearing from Steve, “I call it grid-in-a-box.” He has a scalable architecture deployable at several levels of government. The idea reminds me of Project Blackbox, or commoditization of super-computing. After hearing Steve, there appears no other way to computerize China.
And I want to help too.