Alumna Hwang Gemma and Her Husband Chairman Hwang Kyupin Donate $8 Million to Sookmyung Development Fund
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- Writer 커뮤니케이션팀
- 보도일자 2023-11-21
Alumna Hwang Gemma (Home Economics '59) and her husband Chairman Hwang Kyupin pledged to donate $6 million (approx. ₩8 billion) to the Sookmyung Development Fund in October. With the previous donation of $2 million in February, their total annual donation is $8 million (approx. ₩11 billion).
The fund was transferred through the Hwang Foundation, a philanthropic foundation established by Mr. and Mrs. Hwang, and it will be used to construct a multiplex and dormitory that will become new landmarks of Sookmyung Women's University. The couple said, "We hope this endowment will become a cornerstone for Sookmyung Women's University, which has a 117-year history, to become a university that nurtures the greatest female talents in the world."
Hwang Gemma graduated from the College of Home Economics, now the College of Human Ecology, in 1959 and majored in Food and Nutrition at the University of Vienna, Austria, on a full scholarship. She went on to earn a Master's Degree in Food and Nutrition from Utah State University, and worked for 30 years as a professional dietitian in major hospitals in the United States, such as Santa Clara Kaiser Medical Center, for the first time as a Korean woman.
In 1984, she began collecting funds from alumnae in Northern California and sending them to Sookmyung Women's University. In 1996, when the university was making efforts to build No.2 Changhak campus, she donated hundreds of millions of KRW to the 100th Anniversary Project Fund. The university built Gemma Hall in the College of Pharmacy to honor her love for the university and her noble cause of helping students.
In addition, Hwang Gemma established the Yang Chun-yeol Global Fund to support international students from the third world studying at Sookmyung because she knew from her own experience how difficult it is to study abroad. Thanks to this fund, a total of 109 international students have successfully completed their studies over the past six years. In 2002, emphasizing the collective strength of alumnae hearts and sincerity, she played a significant role in establishing the Sookmyung Alumnae International Foundation (SMAIF), a non-profit fundraising foundation, to revitalize international fundraising. For her remarkable contributions, the university awarded Hwang Gemma the Proud Global Sookmyung Alumni Award (2015), the Sookmyung Special Merit Award (2016), and the Sookmyung Development Contribution Award (2022).
Chairman Hwang Kyupin, husband of Hwang Gemma, is a key figure in the first generation of Silicon Valley success story, who founded the venture company TeleVideo, which developed the world's first personal computer (PC) networking system in 1975. In the company's eighth year of operation, he became the first Korean-American to take a company public on the NASDAQ Stock Market, and has received numerous awards, including the American Academy Golden Plate, which is given to the world's most successful people, the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom, the Order of Industrial Service Merit from the President of the Republic of Korea, the Civil Merit Medal and others.
In addition, he served as an advisor on advanced technology to former President George H. W. Bush and became a Silicon Valley role model and leader of the overseas Korean community. Hwang Kyupin served as a director of the Sookmyung University Foundation and received an honorary doctorate of philosophy from the university in 2006. He currently operates Xeline, a high-speed power line communication chip technology company, and a comprehensive real estate company in the Silicon Valley area.
Known for their diverse social activities and philanthropy, the couple is highly respected in the Korean-American community and American society for their humble and quiet endeavors. Commenting on the recent donation to the Development Fund, Hwang Gemma expressed her humility, stating that she declined elaborate ceremonies or awards because she did what she could within her means.
President Chang Yunkeum expressed her gratitude for the invaluable support of the two individuals with great aspirations for social contributions and talent cultivation. She vowed to strive for the creation of a landmark in Sookmyung worthy of the new normal and the digital and artificial intelligence era. She emphasized to carry on the Sookmyung spirit of "Changing the world with women's wisdom" and to utilize the valuable development funds to become the world's best digital humanities university.