Host: Monte Jade Science and Technology Association
Location: Online
Date: Saturday, November 13, 2021
Time: 5:00-6:30PM (PST)
Speaker: Yu-Ting Kuo, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Corporation
Interviewer: Benny Poon, Senior Manager, Amazon; Board Member, Monte Jade West
Registration: here. Free.
Description:
East Asian Americans lag their peers in leadership positions despite being very well represented at the professional level.
Join us in our interview with Mr. Yu-Ting Kuo, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, with over 25 years of experience in software innovation. During this session, we will retrace Mr. Kuo’s personal and professional journey to the US, and examine leadership traits that can propel Asian Americans to 'break the bamboo ceiling' into senior executive roles in Corporate America.
"Focus more on how far you can go eventually, and less on how fast you are moving in the short term."
"Setbacks can be, and are likely to be disguised blessing in hindsight."
"Projects come and go; people are what truly matters – mutual trust and respect will go a long way." -- by Yu-Ting Kuo
About the Speaker
Yu-Ting Kuo is a Corporate Vice President in the Technology and Research Group at Microsoft. In this role, Kuo works on cross-company technical and strategic initiatives in the areas of context-optimized, deployment-aware machine learning and AI at scale.
Previously, Kuo founded and oversaw Microsoft’s Computer Vision Group, where he managed a global engineering and science organization that developed state-of-the-art technologies in the areas of computer vision and mixed reality. Kuo also helped found Microsoft’s AI R&D Center in Taipei, and Mixed Reality & AI Labs in Zürich, Belgrade, and Cambridge (UK) where the company works on advanced machine learning and computer vision capabilities.
In 2016, Kuo led Microsoft's acquisition of London-based SwiftKey, the top AI-powered mobile keyboard, and served as its post-acquisition general manager.
In 2015, Kuo founded the project initiative that would eventually become Microsoft’s Azure Cognitive Services. Azure Cognitive Services was the first publicly available suite of AI services for developers, helping democratize AI technology for the industry and reaching many millions of developer customers.
In 2014, Kuo served as Technical Advisor to the Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s AI and Research Group, where he led technical strategy, planning, incubation, and strategic prototyping.
Kuo is the recipient of the Inaugural Chinese Institute of Engineers/USA-SEA Asian American Luminary Award in Science and Engineering Innovation in 2018 for his pioneering work in Cloud AI services. He also holds a number of US and international patents on Internet search and AI technologies.
Kuo started his career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company. He joined Microsoft as a technical evangelist in 1996. Kuo attended National Tsing Hua University, Stanford University and MIT, and is currently studying at the University of Oxford. He was named a distinguished alum of the College of Science at National Tsing Hua University in 2020. Kuo was inducted into the Tsing Hua Entrepreneur Network as an overseas member in 2021.
Outside of work, Kuo serves as a member of the Alumni Board and the Executive Board of the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has endowed a graduate fellowship at the Institute to support underrepresented minority students in STEM management careers. Kuo is an adjunct professor of computer science at National Tsing Hua University and has been a guest lecturer in MBA/EMBA mergers & acquisitions and leadership courses at the University of Oxford and MIT. He also mentors venture founders at the MIT delta v accelerator and the National Tsing Hua University Garage Incubator. In addition, Kuo is a resident expert on the Oxford OXFO Elevate accelerator programme. He is an avid collector of Star Wars Lego sets and mechanical keyboards. Kuo and his family live in the Seattle area and enjoy exploring unique corners of the world together.
About the Interviewer
Benny Poon is Senior Manager, for hardware design analysis and optimization at Amazon Lab126. Benny is passionate about hardware design optimization, and pushing the limits of analytical methods for device performance, reliability, and user-experience. He currently leads the structural design integrity organization to support product development at Lab126. Previously, Benny worked at Intel Corporation, as the 10nm Platform Integrator, specializing in optimization of assembly processes for advanced semiconductor packages. Benny has been an active volunteer for the MJAA mentorship program, which connects young Asian professionals with Asian Executives for mentorship, in Silicon Valley. He is currently serving as a board member for the Monte Jade West organization. Benny received a Bachelor's of Science degree in Aerospace engineering, and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Economics, from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also holds a Ph.D. in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology.