Robert Wu is Chairman of the US-China Green Energy Council; Co-Chairman and founding president of the Berkeley Chinese Alumni International Association, Co-Chairman and founding president of the Fudan University Business Education Foundation and a director of The 1990 Institute. Mr. Wu is a veteran of the Computer and Semiconductor Industry in both the U.S. and China. He received his BSEE with highest honors from University of California, Berkeley in 1953 and his MSEE from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954. He was a project manager in semiconductor development for the Transitron Semiconductor Corporation before returning to China in 1956.
In China, Mr. Wu as a member of the Chinese Academy of Science, had played an active role in the early development of the Institute of Semiconductors, the Institute of Computing Technology, and the Institute of Microelectronics. He was a technical director in developing China's first transistor, the first transistorized mainframe and its first microcomputer with silicon IC. He is recognized as a founding member of China's computer and semiconductor industry.
Mr. Wu returned to US in 1978 and joined HP Labs. He facilitated the establishment of HP China, the first joint venture between the US and China. Early in 1982, he supported immediate VLSI implementation on RISC architecture and became the project manager of HP's first RISC microprocessor. In 1985, he made the initial proposal to utilize the vast amount of cost-effective manpower resources in China and India, and became the program manager of HP International Contract Programming. Mr. Wu cofounded Silicon Magic Corporation in 1994, where he served as the Director of Human Resources, Planning, and China Business Development until 1999.