Trung Dung

Trung Dung (born 1967) is a Vietnamese-American born in South Vietnam. His personal and professional story has been profiled in many leading publications including "Forbes", "Financial Times", "The Wall Street Journal" and "San Francisco Chronicle", as well as in Dan Rather's book "The American Dream".

Early life

During the Fall of Saigon, his father, a devout anti-communist, was a Lieutenant in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). He chose to remain and protect his family and defend South Vietnam from the invading North Vietnamese Army and their Viet Cong agents.

Dung's father was captured and sent to a reeducation camp. Dung helped his mother and siblings survive, and he grew to despise the practices of the Communist government.

Upon his father's release, the family secretly immigrated to the United States.

Career

Dung was the chief executive officer of Fogbreak Software, the company he founded. Fogbreak creates enterprise business applications to optimize supply chain flexibility and liability. Fogbreak is well-funded by a group of blue-chip investors: Matrix Partners, Greylock, and Sigma Partners. After a few tumultuous years investors decided to pull their investment. In May 2004, Nilesh Jain, a former professional service consultant at Fogbreak, took over the helm at Fogbreak and has since been operating it as a custom development shop.

Prior to founding Fogbreak, Dung founded and ran OnDisplay, Inc. The company was a pioneer in the development of business-to-business application integration technology. Mr. Dung grew OnDisplay from a product concept to an enterprise software company that was one of the 10 most successful IPOs in 1999 and was ultimately acquired by Vignette Corporation in 2000 for $1.8 billion. Prior to founding OnDisplay, Dung was a senior engineer at Open Market, the first developer of Internet commerce software.

Dung completed some postgraduate work in Computer Science at Boston University and holds bachelor degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts.

He is now a member of the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Education Foundation. In May 2004, Trung Dung was awarded a Golden Torch Award, by the Vietnamese American National Gala in Washington D.C.

Biography

Trung Dung was born and raised in the South of Vietnam. At the age of 17, he arrived in the United States with $2 in his pocket and not knowing a single word of English. His greatest dream was to escape poverty. His excellent knowledge of mathematics and the sciences helped was the direct cause of him being enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in spite of his the poor of English and financial resources. During his college life, he kept various part-time jobs to earn money to cover daily expenses, tuition and extra cents to assist his loved ones in Vietnam.

After graduation, he followed a doctoral program in computer science. He had a good job at a software company in Massachusetts. However, he decided to leave it to for his plans of doing business online. He established OnDisplay Corporation, a software development company. The birth of the company was based on a fairly simple concept. He wanted to design a software program able to select and retrieve information from interested WebPages and arrange it in such away that it would be most convenient for the users.

Unfortunately, as business his experience remained very limited, no investor responded to his call. When the idea almost came to a dead end, it was accepted by Mark Pine,who was then executive director of an important division under Sybase Software Company and a great expert and investor in E-Commerce. Two weeks later, OnDisplay had more than 80 clients including Travelocity, a big e-commerce company. It also alters into strategic contrast with such giants as IBM and Microsoft.

In 2000, OnDisplay was sold for 1.8 billion. Dung then founded Fogbreak solutions, engaged in business applications aimed at optimizing the flexibility and efficiency of assembly lines admittedly, luck was critical to his success. However, more crucial was his great quality. He is a man of visionPOV-statement|date=September 2008. He shows determined and hard working, his able to see opportunity.

His success story was told in famous paper and magazine including "Forbes", "Financial Times", and "Wall Street Journal". He was among the 17 most successful American immigrants in "The American Dream", by Dan Rather. In 2006, Trung Dung returned to his homeland for the first time since his departure in 1984. “I had never thought I would have returned" he said. Soon after he was back in the States he made a plan to assist Vietnamese education. He is now member of a Trusty Board of the Vietnam Education Foundation.

References

External links

* [http://www.trivalleytec.org/software/biographies/tdung_bio.htm Trung Dung Founder of OnDisplay and Fogbreak Software]
* [http://www.fogbreak.com/ Fogbreak Software Home Page]
* [http://www.imakenews.com/ttec/e_article000212972.cfm Former OnDisplay Founder To Speak At Technology in the Vineyards]
* [http://www.imakenews.com/ttec/e_article000052884.cfm Three Top TriValley Entrepreneurs, Technology Company CEOs Join TTEC Advisory Board]
* [http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/54/2004/LIR.jhtml?passListId=54&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&uniqueId=BH69&datatype=Person Forbes.com: Forbes 400 Richest in America]
* [http://www.vangusa.org/ Golden Torch Award, by the Vietnamese American National Gala]
* [http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/03/12/fin_vietnamese_refugee.html Vietnamese refugee a success on the Internet - He started with determination, $2] , AP, 2000
* [http://www.vef.gov/board_bio.php?id=16 Biography]