:00:11. > :00:15.stand down on April 30th. Now it is time for HARDtalk. My guest today
:00:16. > :00:22.is fast becoming one of America's most celebrated female
:00:22. > :00:25.entrepreneurs. It is not just because the company she founded is
:00:26. > :00:31.revolutionising many factoring in the digital age, but also because
:00:31. > :00:35.her own life story represents a triumph over long odds. Ping Fu was
:00:35. > :00:41.just eight years old when her life was turned upside-down by a
:00:42. > :00:47.chairman now's Cultural Revolution. She was thrown out of China. Now
:00:47. > :00:57.she is an adviser to President Obama on innovation. What lessons
:00:57. > :01:21.
:01:21. > :01:26.lie behind this extraordinary Ping Fu, welcome to HARDtalk. You
:01:26. > :01:33.grew up in China. Your life was turned upside-down by the Cultural
:01:33. > :01:38.Revolution. I wonder if the sort of disruption experienced prepared you
:01:38. > :01:46.to thrive in a business sector, the tech industry, which is constantly
:01:46. > :01:52.disrupted. The roles are constantly changing. When I grow up, with the
:01:52. > :01:58.life Jenia had, I had a lot of practice in self-loathing. I had
:01:58. > :02:05.the ability to change. -- Self learning. I was resilient in
:02:05. > :02:09.difficult times. Those were the skills I needed. I suppose it gives
:02:09. > :02:18.you an awful lot of perspective when you have had such a difficult
:02:18. > :02:28.upbringing. My life had been turned upside down, from a loving family
:02:28. > :02:31.
:02:31. > :02:36.with a nice big house in Shanghai, to a ghetto in managing -- Nanjing.
:02:36. > :02:44.I lost both sets of my parents. I became a surrogate mother to my
:02:44. > :02:53.middle sister. We're talking about the early 1960s. You were grabbed
:02:53. > :02:59.by Red Guards working for the Cultural Revolution. Because your
:02:59. > :03:09.family was regarded as intellectual they were relatively privileged.
:03:09. > :03:15.You had to be taken away and re- educated, reprogrammed. They said
:03:15. > :03:23.we did not need formal education. We needed to be educated by workers,
:03:23. > :03:31.farmers and soldiers. We had to work in factories, farm rice and
:03:31. > :03:36.learn how to march in the military. You have described how in the early
:03:36. > :03:44.days there was a lot of hate in you as much in the souls of the UN
:03:44. > :03:54.guards looking after you. You were forced to eat animal dung. You were
:03:54. > :03:57.
:03:57. > :04:05.brought close to death. We were fed better meals and raped by a dozen
:04:05. > :04:13.teenage boys. I was left on a soccer field to die. It was very
:04:13. > :04:22.hard. It was a long time ago. Does the power of the memories you have
:04:22. > :04:32.still live with you? It does from time to time. I learned for a long
:04:32. > :04:42.time to put it away. I wrote a book that just came out. I learnt how to
:04:42. > :04:42.
:04:42. > :04:48.heal those wounds. Your birth parents were not the parents to
:04:48. > :04:54.raise two. You had two sets of parents. Is there any way in which
:04:54. > :04:59.either were able to reach you at this terrible time when you and
:04:59. > :05:03.your sister were living the most dreadful and hard life? Not during
:05:03. > :05:09.the ten years of the Cultural Revolution. My birth mother came
:05:09. > :05:14.back when I was 13. She was put away when I was eight. All of the
:05:14. > :05:20.other parents were sent to remote areas of China. What was it that
:05:20. > :05:30.you found within yourself that allowed you, enabled you, to cope
:05:30. > :05:32.
:05:32. > :05:42.with what she went through? mother anticipated the trouble
:05:42. > :05:50.coming to my life. They taught me. Before I was told -- taken away
:05:50. > :05:58.from the family, they told me to be bamboo, in the prevailing wind and
:05:58. > :06:07.never breaking. It is a mental space in my mind. It is interesting
:06:07. > :06:12.that idea of bending and never breaking? The two ever come close
:06:12. > :06:18.to breaking? Several times. My journal was burned when I was 12
:06:18. > :06:25.years old. I thought about dying. I wanted to jump into a fire. You had
:06:25. > :06:30.written your innermost thoughts and kept a sense of yourself? I did not
:06:30. > :06:36.have anyone to talk to. I could not talk to my parents. I kept a
:06:36. > :06:41.journal on the back of the Communist propaganda for years. It
:06:41. > :06:48.was the only place I could express my innermost thoughts and emotions.
:06:48. > :06:55.It amazes me that you were so resilient. You're so resilient that
:06:55. > :07:01.when the Cultural Revolution came to an end you were able to resume
:07:01. > :07:07.studies. You make contact with your family and you ended up going to
:07:07. > :07:17.university. That is right. It was not the end of your problems, was
:07:17. > :07:17.
:07:17. > :07:24.at? Right before I graduated from college I was doing research. I
:07:24. > :07:29.thought Alice picking a humanitarian topic. I heard that
:07:29. > :07:34.the one-child policy in China caused farmers to kill baby girls
:07:34. > :07:44.because they wanted boys. I did not realise how widespread the killing
:07:44. > :07:45.
:07:45. > :07:52.was. When I went to do the research I saw babies being tossed into
:07:52. > :07:59.rivers with their umbilical cords still fresh. I was a mother since
:07:59. > :08:04.there was eight. Because he raised to assist the? It strikes me in a
:08:05. > :08:10.way, knowing what happened to you, I am beginning to feel that there
:08:10. > :08:15.was something about you that refuses to bow down to authority.
:08:15. > :08:20.You refuse to accept the received wisdom. Otherwise you would not
:08:20. > :08:27.have embarked on this challenging university dissertation about the
:08:27. > :08:34.terrible impact of the one-child policy. That is quite insightful.
:08:34. > :08:41.Looking back, I realised that even though I was brainwashed that I was
:08:41. > :08:46.nobody, I never really believed it. I always wanted to be somebody. It
:08:46. > :08:52.was not specific. I never knew how to stop it. I kept travelling and
:08:52. > :08:57.wanting to be somebody. You talk about brainwashing. What do you
:08:57. > :09:04.really mean by that? It is a phrase that is used often, but how were
:09:04. > :09:13.you brainwashed? We did not study anything in a normal academic field.
:09:13. > :09:23.We always studied Communist propaganda for the Red Book. I was
:09:23. > :09:24.
:09:24. > :09:33.told that I was nobody. I was told that my parents were criminals.
:09:33. > :09:43.You're in a black file, Would you? I wonder if you, having been
:09:43. > :09:47.dismissed by the system, Would you angry with the party? -- were you
:09:47. > :09:56.angry. Had he decided that communism was damaging to the
:09:56. > :10:01.Country? I believed some of the concept of what they taught me.
:10:01. > :10:11.Helping others and being good. At the same time, I did not believe
:10:11. > :10:13.
:10:13. > :10:21.much of what they said. They said to grow Communist wheat rather than
:10:21. > :10:29.capitalist rise. In the end, he was forced out of the country. Some
:10:29. > :10:34.people may wonder how you had the great fortune to leave China and
:10:34. > :10:42.make your way to the US. So many other people who were put on
:10:42. > :10:52.blacklists ended up in the most hard and difficult lives or
:10:52. > :10:55.imprisoned. How come you were allowed out? I did not speak any
:10:55. > :11:01.English, I had no idea what American life was like. At the time
:11:01. > :11:08.I was running from trouble. I thought anything was better than
:11:08. > :11:13.death or being exile. I did not have a future in China. The future
:11:13. > :11:23.was unknown to me when I came to the letter states. Back then, I did
:11:23. > :11:28.not know it would be a good future. I was told to leave. You had no
:11:29. > :11:37.family in the US, and you had no family there. There you were, on a
:11:37. > :11:45.plane from Shanghai to California. It must have been daunting. It was
:11:45. > :11:50.very scary. No family, no friends, I did not speak the language, I did
:11:50. > :11:59.not know what life was ahead of me. At that time, the unknown was
:11:59. > :12:06.better then trouble. When I pity you as a young woman in New Mexico,
:12:06. > :12:12.with no language, money or contacts, then I think about how quickly you
:12:12. > :12:19.got on. Within a few years you were a specialist within computing and
:12:19. > :12:24.software. What was it within you that allowed you to get on so
:12:24. > :12:34.quickly? One part of it is that America is a wonderful place for
:12:34. > :12:41.immigrants. Many people helped me when I first landed in the US. The
:12:41. > :12:45.other part is that I've always learn how to do things by myself.
:12:45. > :12:54.When I grow up there were no teachers or parents around. I
:12:54. > :13:00.learnt to cook quickly. I learned how to work in the factory. I had
:13:00. > :13:06.an ability to learn. I never thought I could not do anything.
:13:06. > :13:15.Life would throw many things at me. Coming to the United States was not
:13:15. > :13:22.as hard as the life I had up until I was 18. You were arriving and
:13:23. > :13:32.studying science at a time when the digital era was just beginning.
:13:33. > :13:34.
:13:34. > :13:38.Computing was taking off. What drew you to that? I wanted to study
:13:38. > :13:42.comparative literature. I could not do it because it did not have
:13:42. > :13:47.English skills. I asked what I could study because it did not have
:13:47. > :13:52.a science background. Somebody told me to look a computer science. I
:13:52. > :13:58.asked where was. They told me it was a man-made language that is
:13:58. > :14:05.used to make things. I thought to myself, I'm good with language and
:14:05. > :14:11.know how to make things. The interesting thing is, even this
:14:11. > :14:21.experience taught me that behind every closed door there is an open
:14:21. > :14:22.
:14:22. > :14:32.space. Every time life slams the door at me, I end up picking up a
:14:32. > :14:38.
:14:38. > :14:41.By the mid-to-late Nineties, you had alighted on an area of software
:14:41. > :14:45.development and computer technology which frankly over the last ten
:14:45. > :14:50.years has become the absolute cutting edge of where many people
:14:50. > :14:57.think the next phase of the digital revolution is going. Perhaps we
:14:57. > :15:04.should in simple terms explain to people that your interest in 3D
:15:04. > :15:09.printing, in a sense shaping Things by computer and then turning those
:15:09. > :15:13.shapes into actual products in a new way, it's potentially
:15:13. > :15:20.revolutionary, isn't it? That's the next big thing. It's as big as
:15:20. > :15:26.steam engine, Henry Ford, assembly- line or the internet. That's a big
:15:26. > :15:31.claim, can you justified it for me? When I was at Super Computing
:15:31. > :15:37.Centre I hired a student called Andrew, we started in San Jose, and
:15:37. > :15:43.that became internet Explorer and Netscape. After that success I went
:15:43. > :15:48.out to start my own company called Geomagic. That was 15 years ago. I
:15:48. > :15:53.thought about combining the internet with manufacturing. In
:15:53. > :15:59.order to create an internet of things. That was of course way
:15:59. > :16:09.ahead of its time. I went out and I saw this machine, which is a 3D
:16:09. > :16:15.Printer from 3D systems, and I was just totally amazed by this machine.
:16:15. > :16:20.It can literally print a 3D product from a machine. Not just paper.
:16:20. > :16:26.of this machine comes a tangible product? Yes. It prints layer by
:16:26. > :16:30.layer. If you print on paper you just grinned one liar. The best way
:16:30. > :16:36.we can make sense of this at least visually is to look at your shoes.
:16:36. > :16:42.-- just print one layer. You have come in today to the studio with a
:16:42. > :16:47.pair of shoes that were printed. That's right, this is the three
:16:47. > :16:54.design -- 3D design and 3D printed shoes moulded to the shape of my
:16:54. > :16:58.feet. In the future, the product design will be in the software code.
:16:58. > :17:05.The fabrication can be locally next to you. The product will start with
:17:05. > :17:08.the person. We have got Mass Customisation of personal factories.
:17:08. > :17:14.If you think of a shoe company that wants to make its products by
:17:14. > :17:17.producing millions of pairs of shoes for the mass market, they
:17:18. > :17:22.can't use this technology, can they? Aren't you talking about
:17:22. > :17:26.something very local and small scale. We will never be able to
:17:26. > :17:32.with this be able to compete in cost with the traditional
:17:32. > :17:37.production line? That's not true. The traditional shoe, the most cost
:17:37. > :17:41.is not in the material and the making of the shoes, it is the
:17:42. > :17:47.infantry, shooting across the seas, retail shops and shoes that nobody
:17:47. > :17:52.wants. 90% of the cost is in that. Less than 10% of the cost is the
:17:52. > :17:56.material in making the issue. In this case the material and the
:17:56. > :18:00.making of the shoe is not more expensive because the machine is
:18:00. > :18:05.making it. You can make it locally so you don't have to share across
:18:05. > :18:12.the sea, which is not only cheaper but less that print. In a sense it
:18:12. > :18:18.is the end of globalisation, it is the end of things being shipped to
:18:18. > :18:28.the United States. -- footprint. It is bringing manufacturing back
:18:28. > :18:28.
:18:28. > :18:37.home? Absolutely. In 2006 When Thomas Friedman wrote a book, "The"
:18:37. > :18:41.World Is Flat ", we were sharing a stage, and I said globalisation is
:18:41. > :18:47.passing, it is now about localisation. We live on one earth,
:18:47. > :18:53.we watched one moon, we inhale the same air. Localisation is very
:18:53. > :18:58.interesting. We will get to that but I want to stick with the shoes
:18:58. > :19:07.are a little bit more. The material, what are they made of? In this case
:19:07. > :19:13.it is a natural fibre, linen. are linen shoes? Yes. The idea of
:19:13. > :19:19.3D printing, could you make things out of metal? Yes. Obviously
:19:19. > :19:25.plastic would be amenable? Yes, plastic, metal, rather, linen,
:19:25. > :19:30.ceramic. There's more than 100 materials. -- Letter. Could you
:19:30. > :19:37.make a mix of materials? Could you make a car, let's think ambitious,
:19:37. > :19:41.via a printer? Not today, but some of the car parts can be made via a
:19:41. > :19:47.printer, and even better, because you can design geometry inside of
:19:47. > :19:51.the metal to make it lighter, stronger on impact, and you can use
:19:52. > :19:55.material to make new material, which is there interesting.
:19:55. > :19:59.what ifs that apply to this technology seemed to run in
:19:59. > :20:04.different directions, one is a dangerous direction. We have
:20:04. > :20:08.already seen the notion of a Wiki weapon aired on the internet, and
:20:08. > :20:13.there's one particular student and some associates of his in Texas who
:20:13. > :20:17.are determined to use 3D printing to make a home-made gun. All you
:20:17. > :20:22.need is the software and a 3D Printer and he believes you can
:20:22. > :20:27.make all the necessary components for a working weapon. It does Grail
:20:27. > :20:32.raised real questions about where this idea of home made assembly and
:20:32. > :20:37.production ends up, doesn't it? but I always believe in our human
:20:37. > :20:43.history it always goes against evil. The gun doesn't shoot itself, it is
:20:43. > :20:50.the human that takes the gun to shoot. Technology itself is not
:20:50. > :20:54.evil. Right? But technology can play to our worst instincts. One of
:20:54. > :20:59.the things that seems to me a danger with the spread of three the
:20:59. > :21:05.printing is that it enabled piracy, copyright infringement, to become
:21:05. > :21:09.even easier. -- 3D printing. Maybe but it could generate more
:21:09. > :21:14.innovation. If you make one of a kind, not one in a million, why
:21:14. > :21:20.would you care about piracy? care about piracy and Copyright for
:21:20. > :21:26.lots of reasons. The one story that intrigued me, a German man saw a
:21:26. > :21:31.picture of a Dutch policemen carrying his handcuffs. He took a
:21:31. > :21:37.picture of those handcuffs, blew it up, looked at it in great detail,
:21:37. > :21:41.stand it, and he was able to make a key through a 3D Printer to fit the
:21:41. > :21:46.handcuffs. That's the sort of danger that you could never
:21:46. > :21:52.anticipate that might come with the technology? That's true. But
:21:52. > :21:58.innovation is also going to create so many more solutions that counter
:21:59. > :22:03.those bad intentions. It's interesting, in human history, when
:22:03. > :22:07.good against evil happens, there's always more good and evil otherwise
:22:08. > :22:12.we would have been erased from Earth already. The reason we
:22:12. > :22:17.evolved is that we are always able to make solution. That's a very
:22:17. > :22:22.optimistic view. I want to reflect again on your background in China,
:22:22. > :22:25.you've been appointed to the US National Advisory Council on
:22:25. > :22:29.entrepreneurship and innovation, but there are people in the US
:22:29. > :22:34.saying that they are losing their innovative edge, especially
:22:34. > :22:40.compared with China. You have got a unique insight into both cultures,
:22:40. > :22:44.is there some merit to that argument? The US has been a very
:22:44. > :22:48.inventive society. We invented very many technologies that have been
:22:48. > :22:57.adopted by other countries. Innovation is about invention made
:22:57. > :23:03.real. Our US or developed Western countries have this issue of not
:23:03. > :23:08.adopting our own invention. We need to look at that more. When Peter, I
:23:08. > :23:12.don't know if you have met him, the sound of Payi Pelle, he said
:23:12. > :23:18.innovation in America is somewhere between dire Straits and debt. You
:23:18. > :23:24.don't share that view? I'm not that pessimistic. -- dead. The United
:23:24. > :23:28.States is still quite an innovative country. I don't share that.
:23:28. > :23:32.Especially in your field, information technology, and other
:23:32. > :23:36.economists, Robert Gordon, he said the benefits of information
:23:36. > :23:41.technology have largely run their course, which suggests he is not as
:23:41. > :23:45.thrilled with 3D printing as you are. Let's wait for ten years and
:23:45. > :23:50.see what happens. I think he would have a lot of 3D printed things at
:23:50. > :23:55.his home. Do you ever go back to China and perhaps think about
:23:55. > :24:04.launching your business, that's done so well in the US, enshrine as
:24:04. > :24:10.well? I do have a subsidiary in China. I don't think China needs to
:24:10. > :24:14.be a dumping ground. It has 1.3 billion people, 1.3 billion
:24:14. > :24:18.consumers. Competition between the US and China and the rest of the