Apple Distinguished Technologist - Chow Yen-Lu

It was the work with AIRC (Apple-ISS Research Centre), a joint venture between Apple and ISS (Institute of Systems Science, Singapore’s national R&D lab at the time) to develop Asia language technologies for the Asian markets, that first brought me to Singapore. That was back in 1994. Initially I made a few business trips to Singapore as and when was needed, but when the opportunity came, and with Kai-Fu’s blessings (who was in charge of the language and media initiatives for Apple at the time), I decided to relocate to Singapore in the spring of 1996 to devote full time to this very important project for Apple, together with my family.

I was at the time serving as the Architect, Asian Language Technologies (later was appointed as Apple Distinguished Technologist) overseeing Apple’s initiative in this area. In moving to Singapore, I took on the additional role as Technology Director at AIRC. At about the same time, ADCS (Apple Design Centre Singapore) was set up by Louis Woo, an Apple Singapore director, to centralise Apple’s commercialization effort in Asian language technologies, and where I spent time directing the productisation efforts as well. This were roles I assumed until the summer of 1997 when I left Apple / AIRC to launch my first startup AsiaWorks that was VC-funded. A lot of the R&D work that I was responsible for came to a commercial fruition during my time at AIRC; this included some of the world’s leading-edge work in the areas of Chinese speech recognition and handwriting recognition. The Apple Chinese Dictation Kit (CDK), Apple’s ground-breaking Chinese dictation product for the Macintosh, the first commercial product that resulted directly from the AIRC JV collaboration, won the Best-of-Best Product Award in Comdex Asia 1995. Then came the invention of the unified language computing architecture and to multi-modal user interfaces for Asian language computing that resulted in the launch of the follow-on product Apple Advanced Chinese Input Suite (AACIS) combining speech and handwriting input, another world’s first in Chinese language computing. The research work at AIRC (and Apple) was subsequently recognized by the Singapore community and received the prestigious Singapore’s NSTB (National Science & Technology Board) Technology Innovation of the Year Award, the highest such award for the nation. When AsiaWorks was acquired by Lernout & Hauspie (a Belgium speech and language company that later listed on Nasdaq), I became their VP of R&D and CTO for Lernout & Hauspie Asia in Singapore. I started a couple of more companies after that, and became a venture capitalist and an angel investor, as well advisor and mentor to other entrepreneurs. I co-founded BAF Spectrum, a business angel fund in partnership with SPRING, and was a founding partner at Fatfish MediaLab, a digital media incubator and venture accelerator. I also served as a director of Business Angel Network SEA, executive mentor and adjunct professor to NUS Enterprise, mentor to INSEAD, panels on entrepreneurship and innovation internationally, including IDA / SPRING, A*STAR, NRF, GMIC, NUS StartUp@Singapore, NUS Social Venture Competition, NTU Idea Inc, Thailand National Business Plan Competition, Crowd Sourcing Week, etc. I currently serve as the Executive Chairman for my family foundation WholeTree Foundation (foundation.wholetree.com) and the Over-The-Rainbow (overtherainbow.sg) youth mental wellness initiative, Singapore’s leading NGO in youth mental wellness; co-founder & Executive Chairman, Asia Institute of Mentoring (AIM) (www.asiainstituteofmentoring.com), Asia’s leading institute in mentor training and certification; founding partner of Fatfish MediaLab (www.fatfish.co); founding Executive Mentor, Young Sustainable Impact Southeast Asia (YSI SEA) (www.ysisea.com). I also founded the Deep Human movement.

In a fast-paced world where the only constant is change, I believe there is an urgent need for each of us to draw on our strengths and creative potential as human beings, to connect with our higher self and our deeper purpose to contribute towards humanity in a positive and impactful way. With the launch of my family foundation and other social impact initiatives, I now devote my time serving both society and the nation in my various capacities. I’m on a life mission to help bring about a kinder, gentler, more inclusive, more just and sustainable world.