Prof. Otto Lin is a world-known leader in innovation and industry technology, with entrepreneurship success in Asia.

Prof. Otto Lin was President of Industrial Technology Research Institute, the largest institution dedicated to development and transfer of industrial technology in Taiwan. In 1997, he was appointed Vice President for Research and Development of the Hong Kong University of Science and technology and contributed to making HKUST a fast rising world-class university. Upon retirement from HKUST, he was CEO of the China Nansha Technology Enterprises Ltd.

He received his BS from the National Taiwan University, and MA and PhD from Columbia University (1963 & 67). Then, he completed the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School.

His interests include management of technology and innovation, science and technology policy, knowledge transfer, science and technology parks, and more recently, soft power in innovations and entrepreneurship. His oral history: “Otto C. C. Lin: Promoting Education, Innovation and Chinese Culture in the Era of Globalization” was undertaken by the Bancroft Library, University of California- Berkeley, 2010.

In TLSS, he will discuss soft power from the disciplines of Laotze and Confucius in Chinese culture and how it creates values for technology products and enterprises. By examples of global technology companies, he suggests that software power attributes are of fundamental importance for corporate sustainability.