Ping Fu, President and CEO, Geomagic, Morrisville, NC

Ms. Ping Fu co-founded Geomagic, a leading U.S. software company which pioneers 3D technologies that fundamentally change the way products are designed and manufactured around the world. Since 2010, Ms. Fu has been serving on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship board at the White House and is a member of the National Council on Women in Technology. In 2005, Inc. magazine named Ms. Fu, “The Entrepreneur of the Year.” She describes herself as an artist and a scientist whose chosen expression is business.

Ms. Fu arrived in the United States in 1983 as a 23-year-old student with virtually no money or English language skills. She grew up during the height of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, and had to raise herself at the age of seven, as well as her younger sister when her parents were forced into a concentration camp. For ten years, Ms. Fu survived on her own determination. She was imprisoned during college for her research into China’s history of infanticide. When she was expelled from China, she found her way to the United States. Ms. Fu chose a career in computers and software design earning both a Bachelor of Science degree and Master’s degree in Computer Science.

Ms. Fu became a naturalized citizen in 1992.