Ping Fu

Ping Fu (born 1958) is a Chinese-American entrepreneur.

Ping Fu was born in 1958 in Nanjing, China, where her father was a professor at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA).

Fu spent her childhood and early adulthood in China.

She grew up during the Cultural Revolution, during which she was separated from both her parents for several years.

After the end of the Cultural Revolution, she attended the college that later became the Suzhou University studying Chinese literature.

Fu has related in interviews and in her memoir that she chose to research China's one-child policy for her thesis and traveled to the countryside, where she found that infanticide of female infants was common, as was abortion, even late into pregnancy.

Fu said that, after turning in her research, she believes it was passed to a newspaper editor who wrote an editorial on the infanticide of female children.

Fu has stated that she was later briefly imprisoned by government officials and was told to leave the country.

After this event, she left school, without graduating.

Fu grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and moved to the United States in 1984.

Fu left China and arrived in the United States in January 1984.

She initially enrolled at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque but later moved to San Diego to study computer science as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego.

During her time in San Diego, Fu worked part-time at a software company called Resource Systems Group as a programmer and database software consultant.

Following her graduation from UC San Diego with a bachelor's degree in computer science, she moved to Illinois, where she took a job with Bell Labs.

The company offered a Ph.D assistance program, through which Fu enrolled in the computer science Ph.D program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

At UIUC she completed a master's degree in computer science.

In the early 1990s, Fu began working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at UIUC.

Her focus was on computer graphics and visualization, including projects such as developing the morphing software for animation of the liquid metal T-1000 robot in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

While at NCSA, she hired student researcher Marc Andreessen and was his supervisor on the project developing NCSA's Mosaic, an early multimedia web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web.

According to her supervisor, Joseph Hardin, Fu was one of the managers involved in the discussions from which the idea for the browser was developed.

In 1994 Ping took a temporary position at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, returning to NCSA in 1995.

In 1996, Marc Andreessen's success with his own company, Netscape, inspired UIUC to encourage entrepreneurship and Fu developed the idea for a company that would combine manufacturing and digital technology, including 3D modeling software, the concept of which she called the "Personal Factory".

She founded Geomagic with her then-husband, Herbert Edelsbrunner, whose research formed the basis for the initial software to be developed by the company.

She co-founded Geomagic in 1997 with her then-husband Herbert Edelsbrunner, and has been recognized for her achievements with the company through a number of awards, including being named Inc. magazine's 2005 "Entrepreneur of the Year".

In 1997, she left the NCSA to begin operations at Geomagic, taking on the role of CEO.

The company was originally named Raindrop Geomagic and was based in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.

It was founded with the aim of developing 3D imaging software that could enable customized manufacturing using 3D printers.

Initially, Fu and Edelsbrunner funded Geomagic themselves, along with investment from Fu's sister Hong and her husband, and later from a group of angel investors.

In 1999, Fu relocated Geomagic from Illinois to the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

That year, Franklin Street Partners committed to invest $6.5 million in Geomagic.

Fu then hired an experienced executive as CEO who ran Geomagic for two years before stepping down when the company was close to bankruptcy.

Fu returned to the role of CEO in 2001, investing her own money into Geomagic and working without a salary in order to continue paying the company's employees.

She was able to lead Geomagic back to stability, gaining a significant contract with Align Technology, and Geomagic returned to profitability over the following two years.

From 2001 to 2003, Geomagic's sales tripled under Fu's leadership.

The company became known as a leader in digital shape sampling and processing.

After she and Edelsbrunner divorced, he continued to serve as an advisor at Geomagic.

She is the co-founder of 3D software development company Geomagic, and was its chief executive officer until February 2013 when the company was acquired by 3D Systems Inc., she is the Vice President and Chief Entrepreneur Officer at 3D Systems.

In 2013, she published her memoir, Bend, Not Break, co-authored with MeiMei Fox.

In February 2013, Fu sold Geomagic to 3D Systems Corporation, a 3D printing company.

She became the Chief Strategy Officer and Vice-President of 3D Systems.