When Acer was founded 40 years ago, our vision was to use technology to help people live better lives.
Mr. Shih lifted up a chip from a microprocessor and said to me, “This is a very powerful thing.”
There are no limits to what a microprocessor can do, the possibilities are endless.
Everything will use one, it’s limitless.
At the time, we saw that the age of the microprocessor age was coming.
It’s the power of human imagination, if we can imagine it, we can create it.
This is the house I grew up in. We farm 2,500 acres of cash crops.
I’ve been thinking about how to automate a tractor for a long time, because we do have limited help on the farm.
At harvest time in particular, there’s more jobs than we know what to do with.
I was looking online for one and I stumbled across the autopilot that goes in these planes
and that’s when the light bulb went off for me, and I thought, “Hey, that thing solves a lot of my problems,
maybe with a little bit of learning I can go the rest of the way.”
So just kind of on a lark, I bought the thing and a little remote control car to go with it,
and I stumbled across open source education from MIT,
learning a programming language, and that’s where the project really got going.
At church one Sunday, one of my friends asked me if I'd given up on that stupid idea yet.
He was just ribbing me a bit, it was all in good fun. But when I came home I told my wife, I was like, "I'll show him."
So, I pulled it out of the closet and got to work and then all of a sudden, all that prior learning I'd done throughout the winter really came in handy,
and I just solved one problem after another
And it’s all because of open source and collaboration amongst some really bright people,
in seven months I went from basically not knowing anything about computer science and electronics,
to getting a tractor to drive on its own.
The first day of harvest when the tractor was working, it was really gratifying.
I have to say that every time I came to the field and saw that tractor
unloading the combine without a driver in it, it just put a big grin on my face.
By 1976, computers had already been around for 30 years.
Processing English and the Latin alphabet was simple, but processing Chinese was still a huge bottleneck.
In 2009, Taiwan’s National Center for High-Performance Computing wanted to procure a brand-new super-computer system.
Only a handful of super computer suppliers existed in the entire world, and no Taiwanese company had ever built one.
Up to that point, there was no good way to enter Chinese characters,
just a big keyboard, like a manual Chinese typewriter. People were trying all sorts of different methods,
but no one had made any breakthroughs.
Mr. Chu Bong-Foo brought together a group of people to research Chinese character encoding.
But after contacting a number of companies, no one understood what he was talking about.
Then he went to Acer.
When Acer first offered to take on the challenge,
the Center for High-Performance Computing was skeptical.
In reality, we were prepared, and willing to invest the resources to establish a local team able to build a super computer.
We put our engineers to work. and
Within less than 8 months, we came out with the best Chinese computer and terminal.
It was a huge breakthrough for processing Chinese on a computer.
In the end, the Center for High-Performance Computing chose Acer, but the real challenge was just beginning.
The acceptance period had a deadline and the pressure was intense.
In 2011, Acer introduced the world’s thinnest laptop, and it needed the best super-thin cooling fan.
At the time no one in the industry was working on blade thickness to improve fan performance.
So that’s the direction we went in.
I remembered how the turbine blades in jet engines are detachable.
By making detachable fan blades that could be assembled later, could we make the blades even thinner?
With a great effort from everyone,
we were able to fine tune the performance and pass the final inspection.
At the time, we had the fearlessness of youth.
At first, we made each blade by hand, then finally we automated the process
and solved the production problem.
After making the Windrider supercomputer, orders came in from a number of big European car companies,
one after another, including Ferrari.
Challenging what was once considered impossible. Step by step, we overcame every difficulty.
Now this is what we want.
Challenge what others think is impossible
San Jose, California, USA
I was about 24 years old when I joined Acer India in Bangalore.
I always wanted to be an engineer and electronics was my passion.
I was moved to Acer Americas to set up their server and storage business.
In the year 2009, I went back to India for a vacation and I went to my village.
One morning I was just like walking across and there was a school nearby
and I saw kids working with a computer.
To my excitement, it was an Acer laptop.
They were excited that now they could connect to the entire world
they could search whatever they want, they can learn much better.
I revealed that I’m from the company that makes those laptops.
Their eyes lit up, they were super happy.
Those are the moments, which make you so proud.
I will keep doing day in, day out this job just for those moments.
I joined Acer in 1982.
At that time, the microprocessor had just sprouted up,
and around the world the concept of the personal computer started appearing.
Mr. Shih told us his vision was that the microprocessor would be like the steam engine,
bringing with it the next industrial revolution.
He said the company would do R&D,
go after the international market and raise eyebrows around the world.
When your heart is ignited by that passion and hunger,
you won’t think anything is a hardship.
When I was younger, the company wanted to become more international, and that provided a stage for me to gain a lot of valuable experience.
The first time I went to attend an expo in Europe was with Acer veteran Luo Tai-Sheng.
We had to carry four or five cases of equipment to the expo ourselves.
At Chinese New Year that year, I had only been in the job for a few months.
I noticed a lot of colleagues worked day in day out on products in the lab, we called it “burn in”, the “burner”.
By the second day of Chinese New Year, I was worried about my project,
and couldn’t help but get on my motorcycle and ride back to the Acer office.
After getting off the plane in Germany, we took the train.
As I was passing him boxes inside, I never imagined the train doors would shut before we were finished!
I stood there in the middle of the road, helplessly looking toward Luo Tai-Sheng on the other side of the train’s glass, both of us like deer in headlights.
As soon as I entered the office, I heard the hubbub of people. All my colleagues from Greater Taipei were there, back to look after their projects.
At the time I was a bit startled, but it’s up to you how to deal with it, in the end we accomplished our mission with flying colors.
At the beginning, it was hard to imagine a technology job being that way.
That kind of satisfaction, a studious, vigorous ambition and spirit, is the most valuable asset.
The thing most worthy of pride in life is when you’ve fought a beautiful battle,
you’ve been wounded, but from the process you’ve gained precious experience.
Fight a beautiful battle
Krefeld, GERMANY
TaKe TV is an online TV channel. We broadcast games worldwide.
I actually started doing this project when I was still living in my private apartment
and I was casting games with a webcam and a computer on my couch. A lot of people actually liked it.
It was at IFA. I think 2012?
There was a guy coming up to me who was also working for Acer. He actually was watching my streams.
They said, ‘I think we might have a cool opportunity for both of us.’
Back then, I was even smaller. I never expected them to ask me.
It worked out very well. And then, our partnership started to work out better and better.
And yeah, now we are here. It's still the same, just bigger.
Now people can actually visit me and enjoy what I love to do, watch games, play games, and have a good time.
With starting TaKeTV I had a new chance to offer jobs to people who played games before and
I think if you offer a company where you can have a lot of fun, make your hobby to your job, you might go everywhere.
At the beginning, when Kingston started, we all had the same belief.
We were all friends: employees were friends, suppliers were friends, clients are friends, every workday was a happy day.
We were founded in a collective style.
Everyone got together to start Acer.
We all worked hard together, and we enjoyed the results together.
Acer sought us out in 2008. The attitude of the Acer team was different from others’.
Acer is sincere, and they don’t beat around the bush.
He just said, “I need your help, and I hope when you need me I can help you.”
I was really moved by his words.
I believe the meaning of human existence is to create value.
Therefore investing in people is crucial, and you must put your trust in them.
From 2008 to 2016 there were some times our company needed them.
We would ask if they could take a bit more to help us through those times. We’re just like old friends.
Doing business and personal conduct are one and the same.
I’ve discovered that Acer and Kingston have exactly the same culture: a promise is of utmost importance to them.
Success, in an industry, doesn’t take just one company,
it requires many companies harnessing the power of all.
Such exchanges will create future value.
Create future value together
Shanghai, CHINA
After I entered university, I joined a band and thought, “Drums are really fun.”
I was enjoying them more and more, so I decided to make my own set.
In two weeks I pieced together these electric drums.
I installed Linux on my computer, and made a MIDI workstation.
I designed my own frame, then fixed the wooden discs on top.
Then I taped on the Arduino and sensors.
The first time I hooked the drums up, I just connected one disc and when I turned the power on, all the sounds went off at the same time.
Two days after I put the set together, I made a video,
as a memento for myself.
I never thought I would attract so many people’s attention, that was the first time I realized my work could be really popular.
I think a “maker” is someone who dares to make their crazy ideas a reality. I think that’s the “maker” spirit.
We are a super-energetic start-up team.
We hope to solve people’s problems, and help them live more comfortable lives.
Arduino is an open-source, open-artwork platform.
These tools, Arduino software allow people to play with electronics and to enjoy electronics.
The start-up team is focused on R&D.
But if any product or technique is shown to be viable then we must take it to market.
The way the Acer will help to build new layers, new tools for the maker community
is to start with the Cloud Professor, the little dongle that has connectivity built in.
Acer has great manufacturing capability, and global distribution,
but to pivot from solely a PC company to a cloud services company requires the support of good ideas and products.
By collaborating with Acer, we can each provide something the other needs.
The value behind the Cloud Professor is not the dongle but the technology that you can use to inter-connect the IoT to the cloud.
It’s all about building a better structure, better projects, better context for our lives.
The computational ability of cloud technology is a fundamental tool for us to explore and understand the world of the future.
Explore and understand the world of the future
Berlin, GERMANY
It was the first time we did our global press conference
in Berlin, at 2014 IFA.
I got our people together right before the event, and I asked them,
“why are we here?” People gave me answers like: “Oh, we are here to launch the product,”
“We are here to make sure that we have good visibility.”
Then, I got back to the fundamentals.
I wanted to make sure that people were there to do something they believe in
From the bottom of their heart.
I told people:
“At Acer, we want to shake the world.
We are here to ‘shake the world’.
When Stan built the Micro-Professor as a platform to teach electronics,
he was really trying to build something to share the passion and the love with other generations.
The new domains and new knowledge of that period were deeply motivating to that generation of technology workers.
Technology provides an opportunity for people to think outside the box, to disrupt what people do everyday.
Each technological breakthrough in history has its significance. It is the culmination of the previous period’s capabilities, and lays a stepping stone for the future.
Everything we do, the products we introduce, our spirit,
is able to give people hope. That’s our most concrete contribution to humanity.
Our mission as a company is to break the barrier between people and technology.
That’s what I think the company should be doing.