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Disillusioned with corporate life in the US, Asians are returning home to find a New Economy that's receptive to their ideas
FOR Chatchai Khunpitiluck, the call to return to Asia came one midnight back in February. On the line was Patrick Grove, head of Catcha.com, the pan-Asian Web portal, urging him to drop his PhD studies at Stanford University and catch the first plane to Singapore the next day to discuss setting up a Thai version of Catcha.
Not an easy call for 25-year-old Chatchai. He was doubtful a deal would result, and anyway, exams were just one week away. Chatchai was looking forward to doing his doctorate in electrical engineering and working in Silicon Valley for at least a few years before returning to Thailand.
But as Chatchai - and legions of others in Asia's vast diaspora throughout the United States - knows only too well, Asia's Internet revolution isn't waiting for anyone. For decades, Asia's bright young things have been heading to the US in search of the holy grail of opportunity and wealth. More recently, the lure of Silicon Valley has taken away much of Asia's business talent. But now, with Asia's economy fast improving, spurred on by the burgeoning dotcom sector; the tide is starting to turn.
Take "superboy" Yat Siu, CEO of Hong Kong-based portal services and solutions business, Outblaze. It may have taken a couple of generations, but the 27-year-old entrepreneur finally returned to his roots. Austrian-born, US-educated Siu's great-grandfather fled Shanghai, for Hong Kong when the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949. He later left for Taiwan. Fifty years on, Siu has returned to the same part of the world, Hong Kong. But his is no sentimental journey of discovery. Siu's sights are set firmly on the future, not the past. It was Hong Kong's business environment and its position as the hub of Asia's Internet fever that lured him back.
Similar reasons drew back Alex Choi, the Hong Kongborn president and CEO of Silicon Valley semiconductor startup Analogic Tech. Choi was typical of his generation in the sixties. Despite gaining a science degree, there were no opportunities for him in his hometown and he was forced to leave for the US. Now he's in...