Editing Ben Chiu (section)

== Early Life ==

Born in Taichung, Taiwan, Ben, the only child moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina at eight months of age with his mother (Hsiu Lan) and father (Sheng Dien) where they lived for six years before moving to Toronto, Canada. He attended high-school at Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario and graduated with honors and awards in Computer Science and Visual Arts. In 1993 he received his Bachelor's Degree in Applied Science, Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto.

When he was 11, Ben began to take an interest in programming. One summer, Ben's father assigned him to write a database system (using DBASE) for their family business. With help from his father, Ben started Linguasoft Corp. and sold his system to bookstores and libraries. To this day, the Royal Ontario Museum is still using his software.

Barely a teenager, Ben Chiu played table-tennis for the provincial (Ontario) team. Under the relentless training of renowned Yugoslavian coach Zoran Kosanovic, Ben won the Canadian National Championships (junior singles), Formosa Cup (men's singles) and took 2nd place at the 1984 U.S. Open (junior doubles). Oddly enough, Ben is cross-dominant (ex. plays table-tennis with his south paw but writes with his right hand).

In addition to high school, Ben also attended school for the gifted in visual arts. His art teacher once offered to buy one of his oil paintings but Ben declined. Some of his wildlife paintings have been displayed at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario. At the time, his style was inspired by Robert Bateman, Glen Loates and Andrew Wyeth.