A Chat with Mei Lin Fung: Chair, cofounder with Vint Cerf, People Centered Internet; Early pioneer of CRM; Chair, IEEE Society and Technology (SSIT) Technical committee on Sustainability; emeritus Chair of California Health Medical Reserve Corps; about the past and future of technology

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Mei Lin Fung.

Chair and cofounder with Vint Cerf of the People Centered Internet, gave the keynote on Decade of Digital Transformation at the World Bank IFC Global SME Financing Forum October 2020, she presented at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Digital Economics launch in 2017. Mei Lin is an early pioneer of customer relationship management (CRM). She served as socio-technical lead for US Federal Health Futures initiative 2011-2013, and is a current member of the WEF Precision Medicine and the Digital ASEAN (Association of South east Asian Nations) Cross Border Data flows, Mobile Payments working groups. She was on the 2016-2018 WEF’s Global Future Council on Digital Economy and Society.

Within the IEEE she chairs the Industry Connections Social Impact Measurement committee, and is a member of the Executive Committee for IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee. She served as Vice Chair, Internet Inclusion for the IEEE Internet Initiative through 2018. Mei Lin is Singaporean, living in Silicon Valley who worked at Intel then Oracle, then chaired Douglas Engelbart’s Core Planning Committee, advocating Networked Improvement Communities for a people-centered Internet.

As Socio-Technical lead for Federal Health Futures at the US Department of Defense, she was introduced to Community Health Centers in the US – 1200 entities that operate 9000 clinics around the country, with a mission to reduce health disparities for the poor and underserved. The financial sustainability of these Community Health Centers can be greatly enhanced by applying the lessons learned within the tech corporations on managing operations to improve effective delivery of desired outcomes. She addressed and resolved issues in customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and cash flow to achieve amazing successes with $billion impact at Avaya Global Customer Care, and Microsoft Telesales in China.

She earned her BSc in Math from ANU, MBA in Finance from MIT where she studied under two future Nobel Economics Prize winners. She initiated under the People Centered Internet agenda, ImpactX.co a repository for social impact projects with Kartik Kulkarni and the @GlobalHelpDesk connecting Tech communities with ITU, UNDP, World Bank and WEF to respond practically to recovering socially and economically from the Covid Crisis.

TO WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW, CLICK ON THIS MP4 file link