If life has its own logic, Robin Hu was probably a bit quicker than others his age to see it at the right juncture in his career.
The logic, Hu says, has taken him from Singapore to the United Kingdom, where he had his first contact with computers in the early 1980s, to a yet-to-be-decorated meeting room with a view of high rises in the business heart of eastern Beijing today.
Next door is Hu's tiny office, which looks out on a busy workplace of computers and young workers.
Messy as it may look, this newly established Chinese headquarters of Asiacontent.com, an ICP company serving the whole continent, is the latest sign of logic for Hu, now director of the Asiacontent Chinese Division.
China is the right place for him to resume a dream to work with the Internet, Hu says. In the past year, China's Internet sector grew as surfers nearly quadrupled to about 9 million.
"I can say that I've never really gotten too far away from the Internet," Hu said. "I walked off for some time, but not far, to do something else. Coming back now is very natural and logical. And the timing is good."
The logic of China is clear. Internet portals led by Sina.com and Sohu.com mushroomed, luring foreign capital to Beijing and Shanghai to get wired to the potential Chinese user base.
Asiacontent.com, which was established last year in Hong Kong, is not in the lead with Yahoo!.com and Sina.com becoming known to Chinese people.
But Hu says his company's name will get bigger. "We are dedicated to deepening the content instead of developing portal service."
In other words, Hu said: "The second peak of Internet development has just arrived, and China is one of the most promising places. So it's not late, but timely, to come here now."
Hu was among a technological vanguard who experienced what he described as the "two peaks" of Internet development.
Hu, who received a double degree in computer science and mathematics in Britain, says he knows enough to catch up with the first peak of Internet boom in the early 1990s.
Hu said he helped the Singaporean Government in computerizing its civil services and helped establish its management information system.
Until then, the computer was far from an integral part of people's daily life, even in a country known for the quality of its education.
Logic took over again. To mainstream the Internet in educated Singapore, Hu, then with the country's National Computer Board, led a task force of experts to build the Intelligent Island Project, Internet infrastructure intended to expose Singaporeans to a world much bigger than the island they inhabited.
With the aid of Singaporean Government, the project went through and evolved into a larger project, now under construction.
While away from Internet business for five years, Hu noticed what was going on in China.
As regional director of Singapore's Economic Development Board, Hu helped develop the Suzhou Industrial Park in Jiangsu Province, the most significant economic venture between the Singapore and Chinese governments.
When Hu was seeking investment for the industrial park, for the first time he came to understand China, where he has family history. (Hu's grandparents went to Singapore from Wuhan in Central China.)
"In the years with the Suzhou Industrial Park, I travelled around the country, met with all people from all levels and made sense of how business gets done in different regions and in different systems in China. It's hard, but interesting and useful as experience," he said.
Early this year Hu quit two decades of service for the Singaporean Government and joined Asiacontent.com. because the Internet was so tempting, he said.
What struck the father of two teen-aged sons was the Internet's recent penetration into human life, including young people.
"One day I heard my older son ask his new friends for an address," he recalled. "He was not asking for street names or telephone numbers, or e-mail address, but ICQs! It really went far beyond my experience although I use e-mail almost daily."
Hu said this change epitomizes technology's impact on communication.
"For my mother, number one is face-to-face talking, then by telephone if she had to," Hu said. "For my wife, e-mail is number one, then the telephone; For my son, ICQ is number one, then e-mail and last the telephone.
"So you can see how great an impact the Internet has made on people's life, on the younger generation," he said.
Hu says the Chinese younger generation is definitely headed toward ICQ's and e-mail with the country's opening to the outside world and the Net's penetration into China.
It is only logical.
"That's why we are here, because China is now the best theatre for the Internet to stage its dramas. Everyday," he said.
(China Daily)
