Ming Hsieh (; born 1956) is a

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

Chinese-born American

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

. He is the founder of

Cogent Systems Cogent Systems, Inc. is a manufacturer of automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS). On January 20, 2006, the City of Pasadena (CA) announces Cogent Systems' impending relocation from South Pasadena to Pasadena. On August 30, 2010 3M ...

in 1990. In 2011, he founded a genetic testing technology company. According to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' magazine, his estimated net worth exceeds $1.6 billion, ranking him the 198th richest person in America and 562nd among The World's Richest People In 2006. He also owns the Sanlorenzo Ocean Dreamwalker Yacht.

Early life

Ming Hsieh was born in 1956. His parents were Baoyan and Sun Hsieh. His family originated in Guangzhou (Canton). Hsieh was raised in

Shenyang Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a major China, Chinese sub-provincial city and the List of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Lia ...

, the capital city of

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

Northeast China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of t ...

. His family was persecuted during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

as a part of China's upper middle class having ties with the Nationalist government and moved to Taiwan ( Yingzhou, Ming's grandfather, was a high-ranking official of Republic of China). As a result, his family was forced to move in 1966 to a small village near

Panjin Panjin () is a coastal prefecture-level city in central Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, situated on the northern shore of the Liaodong Bay. It borders Anshan to the east, Yingkou to the southeast, and Jinzhou to the west and north ...

. At the age of 10, Hsieh's formal education stopped for the next ten years. During that period, Hsieh learned the trade of

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from his formally trained father as they built a crude power system for the village they were assigned to and did odd repair work. Hsieh's uncle, P.Y. Hsieh, had left China and earned a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

in 1952 before working for TRW. Knowing of this, Hsieh decided to follow his uncle and, after two years at the

South China Institute of Technology The South China University of Technology (SCUT; ) is a public university in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. The university is co-sponsored by the China Ministry of Education and the Guangdong Provincial People's Government. The university is a mult ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

and with an inheritance from his grandparents in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, he transferred to USC's engineering program at age 24. Hsieh earned his Bachelor of Science in

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from USC in 1983 and MSEE in 1984. His parents wanted him to continue and earn a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

, but Hsieh decided to first work a few years.

Career

Hsieh began work as a circuit designer for

International Rectifier International Rectifier was an American power management technology company manufacturing analog and mixed-signal ICs, advanced circuit devices, integrated power systems, and high-performance integrated components for computing. On 13 January 20 ...

. After two and a half years, he decided to start his own business. He founded Cogent Systems Inc. which offered fully automated, high-speed

biometric Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...

fingerprint system. The company began receiving numerous government contracts and now includes the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

and

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

amongst its customers. He was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

in 2015 for the development and commercialization of biometric identification systems.

Philanthropy

In October 2006, Hsieh donated $35 million to USC's

Viterbi School of Engineering The USC Viterbi School of Engineering (formerly the USC School of Engineering) is the engineering school of the University of Southern California. It was renamed following a $52 million donation by Andrew J. Viterbi, co-founder of Qualcomm. ...

's Department of Electrical Engineering, 100 years after the department and school's founding. In honor of his donation, the department was renamed the USC Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering. In October 2010, Hsieh donated $50 million to USC for cancer research. He is on the USC Board of

Trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...

s.Board of Trustees
, University of Southern California, ''Accessed April 13, 2008.'' In November 2007, Hsieh donated $5.5 million, cash and in-kind, to

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State College ...

's Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Department of Forensic Investigative Sciences, one of only ten in the nation. WVU houses the largest Crime Scene Training Complex in the country. In honor of his donation, WVU named a building on their downtown campus, Ming Hsieh Hall. In February 2014, he donated $1 million US to the

Children's Hospital Los Angeles Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital in the East Hollywood district of Los Angeles, on Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Vermont Avenue. The hospital has been academically affi ...

.Laura Coleman, 'Beverly Hills' Hsieh Family Donates $1 Million to CHLA', ''

The Beverly Hills Courier ''The Beverly Hills Courier'' is a free weekly tabloid-sized print newspaper of circulation in Beverly Hills and the surrounding communities, and a daily web newspaper. History The publication was founded by March Schwartz in 1965. His staff inc ...

'', February 6, 2015, pp. 4; 12

Personal life

Hsieh is a

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

U.S. citizen. He is married to Eva Hsieh, and they reside in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

with their two children. Hsieh also has two adult children from a previous marriage.

References

External links

Putting a Fingerprint on Electrical Engineering: Cogent co-founder Ming Hsieh gives $35 million gift to name the Viterbi School’s oldest and largest department
October 22, 2006.

usc.edu.

Forbes.com.

Forbes.com. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hsieh, Ming 1955 births Living people Businesspeople from Shenyang People from Beverly Hills, California Chinese emigrants to the United States American billionaires American computer businesspeople American philanthropists American technology chief executives American technology company founders USC Viterbi School of Engineering alumni Members of Committee of 100 American people of Chinese descent Naturalized citizens of the United States