PASADENA, Calif.—Semiconductor-industry leader, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Wenchi Chen has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Since 1992, Chen—a Caltech alumnus—has served as president and CEO of VIA Technologies, Inc., a manufacturer of integrated circuits based in Taipei, Taiwan. He has overseen the company's transition from chipset designer to leading developer of silicon chip technologies and personal computer platform solutions that have led to innovations in PCs, notebooks, and other computing systems. Prior to VIA, Chen cofounded and was president and CEO of Symphony Laboratories.
Chen is on the board of directors of or is an advisor to numerous companies in the information technology industry, including HTC Corporation, one of the world's leading suppliers of smart phones. In 2001, Chen was named by Businessweek as Asia's top entrepreneur.
Chen and his wife, Cher Wang, are active philanthropists in the areas of education, health care, science and technology, and social welfare. Their philanthropic activities have included major support for earthquake relief in China and for 9/11 victims in the United States; they also recently founded the Guizhou Forerunner College, which provides free or low-cost higher vocational education to disadvantaged and sight-impaired students in China's Guizhou Province.
Chen is a member of the Information Science and Technology (IST) Advisory Council in Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Last fall, he and his wife provided a leadership gift in support of Caltech's IST initiative, which seeks to expand the power and cross-disciplinary impact of information science and technology. Through their gift, they hope to foster collaborative research and education opportunities between Caltech and institutions in China, Taiwan, and/or Hong Kong.
Chen received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University and a master's degree in computer science from Caltech. Chen and Wang have two sons.
The Board of Trustees is the governing body of Caltech. The Board is led by Kent Kresa, chair, and vice chairs David L. Lee and Ronald K. Linde, and is currently composed of 44 trustees, 13 senior trustees, 25 life members, and one honorary life member.
Written by Michael Rogers