Ping Fu

Ping Fu was born in 1958 in Nanjing, China,[6][7] where her father was a professor at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA).[8] Fu spent her childhood and early adulthood in China. She grew up during the Cultural Revolution, during which she was separated from both her parents for several years.[9][10] After the end of the Cultural Revolution, she attended the college that later became the Suzhou University[7][11] studying Chinese literature.[12] Fu has related in interviews and in her memoir that she chose to research China's one-child policy for her thesis and traveled to the countryside, where she found that infanticide of female infants was common, as was abortion, even late into pregnancy.[13][14] Fu said that, after turning in her research, she believes it was passed to a newspaper editor who wrote an editorial on the infanticide of female children.[11][15] Fu has stated that she was later briefly imprisoned by government officials and was told to leave the country.[16][17] After this event, she left school, without graduating.[18]

Fu left China and arrived in the United States in January 1984.[10] She initially enrolled at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque[15] but later moved to San Diego to study computer science as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego.[7] During her time in San Diego, Fu worked part-time at a software company called Resource Systems Group as a programmer and database software consultant.[19] Following her graduation from UC San Diego with a bachelor's degree in computer science, she moved to Illinois, where she took a job with Bell Labs.[7] The company offered a Ph.D assistance program, through which Fu enrolled in the computer science Ph.D program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). At UIUC she completed a master's degree in computer science.[20][21]

On December 31, 2012, Fu published a memoir, Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds.[36] Co-authored with MeiMei Fox, the book told the stories of her life, from her early childhood in China to her experiences as an entrepreneur, including founding and leading Geomagic.[37][38] The book received positive reviews from outlets including The Wall Street Journal[17] and Oprah.com.[37]

Beginning in January 2013, commentors in the Amazon.com reviews for the memoir began posting critical reviews, accusing Fu of lying about events in her past.[17] Around the same time, first in English,[15] then in Chinese [39] on Forbes China, Forbes published an interview with Fu that discussed Fu's memoir and her early life, which contained an inaccurate interpretation of where Ping Fu lived during the cultural revolution.[40][41][42] Chinese netizens responded to the piece with criticisms regarding alleged fabrication of events and inconsistencies in media coverage of Fu,[40][43] which raised questions in the media about the veracity of details included in the memoir.[44] Chinese blogger Fang Zhouzi was among the critics[45] and he later raised further questions and criticisms based on earlier media coverage of Fu.[43] Following the initial criticisms from Fang Zhouzi and other critics, commentors appearing to be non-native English speakers knowledgeable about Chinese history posted hundreds of negative comments in the memoir's Amazon.com reviews, leading The Daily Beast and New York Times [46] to conclude that Ping was the subject of an online attack.[17][47]

Fu responded to the criticisms through a public statement,[48] and a post on the Huffington Post website answering questions that were raised about her childhood, education and being forced to leave China.[11] She acknowledged that there were some inaccuracies in the book.[27] She also acknowledged that the Red Guard atrocity she related in the memoir and media interviews regarding a teacher being pulled apart by four horses may have been an emotional memory, the result of hearing tales of such barbarity in old China as a child and having nightmares about it, or seeing it in a movie, rather than actually seeing it.[42][49][50] In response to questions about accuracy of details in the book, her publisher stated that the book is a memoir, rather than a journalistic account of the Cultural Revolution.[45][49] Fu has said that a second print of the memoir will correct inaccuracies that have been pointed out.[50]

For her work with Geomagic, Fu has received a number of awards. In 2003 she was named the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" for the Carolinas and received the Entrepreneurial Inspiration Award from North Carolina's Council for Entrepreneurial Development.[10] The following year, Fast Company named her a 2004 "Fast 50" winner.[10][51] In 2005, Inc. magazine named Ping its "Entrepreneur of the Year".[8]

The America China Business Women’s Alliance awarded Fu its "Business Innovation Award" in 2008[52] and she received the 2010 "Leadership Award" from the CAD Society.[51] The next year, she was given a "Lifetime Achievement" award by the Triangle Business Journal.[6] In 2011 she was given the William C. Friday Award at North Carolina State University,[53] and in 2012, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services named Fu as an "Outstanding American by Choice".[31]