This year's Distinguished Amluni Award goes to three outstanding enterprenuers. They are:

Dr. Frank Kung Received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from UC Berkeley after graduating from NTHU's Chemistry Department in 1970. He did his postdoctoral research in molecular immunology and subsequently participated in numerous projects in bio-engineering and medical instrumentation and their commercialization. After a short tenure (1978-1980) with Cetus, a biotechnology company, he co-founded two top bio-tech companies: Cetus Palo Alto and Cetus Immune. In 1984, he joined six faculty members from Denver University and Yale University and founded Genelabs and became the chairman and CEO of the company, which was listed on NASDAQ in 1991. In 1995, Genelabs turned into a 175-employee international corporation with its headquarters in California and branch offices in Singapore, Switzerland, Belgium, and Taiwan.

He left Genelabs in 1995 to start a venture capital investment firm BioAsia Investments, which became Vivo Ventures in 2004. Vivo Ventures is a healthcare/biotechnology venture capital management firm.

Dr. Kung has maintained a close touch with his alma mater develop since he went abroad in 1971, and he had consulted Prof. Wen-Tsuen Chen, the former NTHU President, on a number of occasions on how to best bio-tech education on NTHU campus. He was on the NTHU’s Advisory Board, and was on the Bio-tech Policy Board of Taiwan’s Executive Yuan, 1997-2002.

Dr. Yue-Teh Jang, class 1976—material Science, received his Ph.D. from University of Utah. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of Embol-X, a private company engaging in the development of proprietary medical devices to prevent stroke during cardiac surgery and other interventional procedures. Prior to that, Dr. Jang was Vice-president for corporate R&D at Boston Scientific, and Vice-president of R&D at Cardiovascular Imaging Systems, Project Manager with Mallinckrodt Medical, and Scientist with Deseret Medical. He currently serves as the Managing Director at the Vertical Group, a venture capital company.

The Vertical Group manages private partnerships with a "vertical" range of investments including early and late venture stage companies, private operating companies buy-out, corporate spin-off transactions of public companies of all sizes, Over the last 28 years, Dr. Jang has contributed enormously in education, technical innovations, medical devices, and also he has personally invented a number of products in the cardiovascular, osseous and MIS (Minimally Invasive Solution) fields.

Aside from his busy business endeavors, Dr. Jang always took time out tp promote bio-tech education and research in universities, business/commercial societies, and the industry communities as well.

Mr. Howard Chen—class 1983, BS and class 1985, MS, electrical engineering—found Gemtek in 1992 with friends after working in the industry for a while. As the chairman and CEO of the company, he set off to search for a market niche in the RF field, and he settled on the printer server/router, and in the process he duly developed multi-national patents to support the product. In view of the rapid WLAN developments. In 1995, he brought the company from a simple RF application provider to a new height: an all-round integrated WIFI communication company.

Capitalizing on the company's WIFI strength, Howard Chen set his eyes on a bigger goal: to become the leader in "Internet of Things". Following the company's credo (Anytime, Anywhere, Any content & Affordable) to the letter, he has contributed tirelessly in reducing the "digital divide" so the less-privileged can access knowledge and information like anyone else.