Bill Gates
Chairman, Microsoft Corporation
Co-Chairman, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft had revenues of US$51.12 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2007, and employs more than 78,000 people in 105 countries and regions.

On June 15, 2006, Microsoft announced that effective July 2008 Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After July 2008 Gates will continue to serve as Microsoft's chairman and an advisor on key development projects. The two-year transition process is to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates' daily responsibilities. Effective June 2006, Ray Ozzie has assumed Gates' previous title as chief software architect and is working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities at Microsoft. Craig Mundie has assumed the new title of chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft and is working closely with Gates to assume his responsibility for the company's research and incubation efforts.

Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle with his two sisters. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International.

Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.

In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's chief executive officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personal computers. Gates' foresight and his vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry.

Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft's mission has been to continually advance and improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers. The company is committed to a long-term view, reflected in its investment of approximately $7.1 billion on research and development in the 2007 fiscal year.

In 1999, Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. The book was published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries. Business @ the Speed of Thought has received wide critical acclaim, and was listed on the best-seller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com. Gates' previous book, The Road Ahead, published in 1995, held the No. 1 spot on the New York Times' bestseller list for seven weeks.

Gates has donated the proceeds of both books to non-profit organizations that support the use of technology in education and skills development.

In addition to his love of computers and software, Gates founded Corbis, which is developing one of the world's largest resources of visual information - a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the globe. He is also a member of the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which invests in companies engaged in diverse business activities.

Philanthropy is also important to Gates. He and his wife, Melinda, have endowed a foundation with more than $28.8 billion (as of January 2005) to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning, with the hope that in the 21st century, advances in these critical areas will be available for all people. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $3.6 billion to organizations working in global health; more than $2 billion to improve learning opportunities, including the Gates Library Initiative to bring computers, Internet Access and training to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada; more than $477 million to community projects in the Pacific Northwest; and more than $488 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns.

Gates was married on Jan. 1, 1994, to Melinda French Gates. They have three children. Gates is an avid reader, and enjoys playing golf and bridge.

Professor Paul Ching-Wu Chu, BS, MS, PhD, JP
President, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Dr. Paul Ching-Wu Chu joined HKUST in July 2001 as President and Professor of Physics.

Born in Hunan, China, Prof Chu received his BS degree from Cheng-Kung University in Taiwan. He earned his MS degree from Fordham University, New York, and completed his PhD degree at the University of California at San Diego. All of his three degrees are in physics.

After two years' industrial research with Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey, Prof Chu was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at Cleveland State University. He was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor and Professor of Physics. He later took up an appointment as Professor of Physics at the University of Houston and became Director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity. He has served as the TLL Temple Chair of Science at the same university since 1987. He also served as a consultant and visiting staff member at Bell Laboratories, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the Marshall Space Flight Center, Argonne National Laboratory, and DuPont at various times.

Prof Chu has received numerous awards and honors for his outstanding work in superconductivity, including the US National Medal of Science, the Comstock Award and the International Prize for New Materials. He was an invited contributor to the White House National Millennium Time Capsule at the National Archives in 2000 and was selected the Best Researcher in the US by US News and World Report in 1990. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (foreign member), Academia Sinica, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World; and a Fellow of the Russian Academy of Engineering. In 2007, he was appointed as a Member of the US President's Committee on the National Medal of Science, responsible for the selection of recipients for this top scientific honor in the US. His research activities extend beyond superconductivity to magnetism and dielectrics. His work has resulted in the publication of more than 530 papers in refereed journals.

Professor Lawrence J. Lau
Vice-Chancellor and President, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Dr. Lawrence J. Lau, Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development, Department of Economics, Stanford University, was born in China in 1944 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1974. He received his B.S. degree in Physics and Economics, with Great Distinction, from Stanford University in 1964, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1966 and 1969 respectively. He joined the faculty of the Department of Economics, Stanford University, in 1966 and was promoted to Professor of Economics in 1976. In 1992, he was named the first Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development at Stanford University. From 1992 to 1996, he served as a Co-Director of the Asia/Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. From 1997 to 1999, he served as the Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Stanford University. He is also a Senior Fellow of SIEPR (by courtesy), the Institute for International Studies (by courtesy) and the Hoover Institution (by courtesy), Stanford University. His specialized fields are Economic Theory, Economic Development, Economic Growth, and the Economies of East Asia, including China. He developed one of the first econometric models of China, in 1966, and has continued to revise and update his model since then.

Dr. Lau has been elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a member of Tau Beta Pi, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, an Academician of Academia Sinica, a Member of the Conference for Research in Income and Wealth, an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, England, an Honorary Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Social Sciences, honoris causa, by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has been a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has served and continues to serve on editorial boards of numerous professional economics journals. He is the author or editor of five books--Farmer Education and Farm Efficiency (with Dean T. Jamison), Models of Development: A Comparison of Economic Growth in South Korea and Taiwan, Econometrics and the Cost of Capital: Essays in Honor of Dale W. Jorgenson, North Korea in Transition: Prospects for Economic and Social Reform (with Chang-Ho Yoon), and U.S. Direct Investment in China (with Kwok-Chiu Fung and Joseph S. Lee)--and more than one hundred and sixty articles and notes in professional publications.

Amongst his many professional activities, Dr. Lau is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai; an Honorary Professor of the Institute of Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, the College of Management, Tsing Hua University, Beijing, People's University, Beijing, Shantou University, Shantou, Nanjing University, Nanjing, and Southeast University, Nanjing; a member of the Board of Directors of the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Taipei and an International Advisor, National Bureau of Statistics, People's Republic of China.

Dr. Lau has served as a consultant for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the RAND Corporation, the United Nations Development Programme, Capital International, Inc., Citibank, N.A., the International Commercial Bank of China, and numerous other public and private organizations. From 1989 through 1991, Dr. Lau served as a member of the Stanford University Board of Trustees Committee on Investments and from 1991 through 1992 as a member of its Committee on Finance. From 1979 through 1985, and from 1999 through 2002, Dr. Lau served as a Director of the Bank of Canton of California and a member of its Executive Committee. From 1999 through 2002, Dr. Lau also served as the Vice Chairman of the Bank of Canton of California. Dr. Lau also served as a Director of Property Resources Equity Trust (1987-1988), Morningside Technologies, Inc. (2000-2001) and PreCom, Inc. (2000-2002). Since 1998, Dr. Lau has been serving as a Director of the Taiwan Fund, Inc. Dr. Lau also serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of BOC International Holdings Limited (since 2001) and Media Partners International Holdings Inc. (since 2001).

Professor Lap-Chee Tsui
Vice-Chancellor and President, The University of Hong Kong

Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Lap-Chee Tsui is the fourteenth Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong. Prior to his present appointment in September 2002, Professor Tsui was Geneticist-in-Chief and Head of the Genetics and Genomic Biology Program of the Research Institute, at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He was also the holder of the H.E. Sellers Chair in Cystic Fibrosis and University Professor at the University of Toronto.

Born in Shanghai and awarded his bachelor and master's degrees from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Professor Tsui is a native of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1979. After a brief training in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he joined the Department of Genetics at The Hospital for Sick Children. He received international acclaim in 1989 when he identified the defective gene that causes cystic fibrosis, which is a major breakthrough in human genetics. He has also made significant contributions to the study of the human genome, especially the characterization of chromosome 7, and, identification of additional disease genes. He has 290 peer-reviewed scientific publications and 65 invited book chapters and papers.

Professor Tsui has received numerous awards and honours for his outstanding work over the years. His honours include Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Fellow of Academia Sinica, and Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). In addition to many national and international prizes, he was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by University of King's College, University of New Brunswick, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, St. Francis Xavier University, York University, Tel Aviv University, University of Toronto and University of Aberdeen.

Professor Tsui has served on the editorial boards for 20 international peer-reviewed scientific journals, numerous scientific review panels, and many national and international advisory committees. He is currently member of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, Council for Sustainable Development and Executive Committee, and Executive Committee of the Commission on Strategic Development of the Hong Kong SAR Government. He received the Order of Canada (Officer), the Order of Ontario, Knight of the Legion d'Honneur of France, and the title of Justice of the Peace (HKSAR).

Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon
Managing Director, Microsoft Research Asia

Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon is Managing Director of Microsoft Research Asia, located in Beijing, China. In this role, Dr. Hon oversees the lab's research activities and collaborations with universities in Asia Pacific.

An IEEE fellow, Dr. Hon is an internationally recognized expert in speech technology. He serves on the editorial board of the international journal of the Communication of the ACM. Dr. Hon has published more than 100 technical papers in international journals and at conferences. He co-authored a book, Spoken Language Processing, which is a graduate-level textbook in speech technology. Dr. Hon holds three dozens of patents in several technical areas.

Dr. Hon has been with Microsoft for 13 years. He joined Microsoft Research Asia in 2004 as a Deputy Managing Director, responsible for research in Internet search, speech & natural language, system, wireless and networking. In addition, he managed MSN Search product development in China.

Prior to joining Microsoft Research Asia, Dr. Hon was architect with the Natural Interaction Service Division at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Wa. He was responsible for architectural and other technical aspects of the award-winning Microsoft Speech Server product. Dr. Hon joined Microsoft Research as a senior researcher in 1995. He previously worked at Apple Computer, where he led research and development for Apple's' Chinese Dictation Kit.

Dr. Hon received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University and Ph.D in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.