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When Mei Lin Fung left Singapore for Australia in 1974 and then moved from Australia to the U.S. in 1982, she carried with her the lessons of a nation transformed. Growing up in the post-independence generation, Mei Lin witnessed how investments in infrastructure and education could lift an entire society. That perspective — seeing technology as a tool to strengthen communities — has guided her life’s work. 

“Strong, people-centered systems enable societies to thrive,” she reflects. “Technology must be designed to support those systems rather than undermine them.”

Her early career at Oracle found her on a two-person skunkworks team that developed the prototype for what would become Customer Relationship Management (CRM). That experience taught Mei Lin how powerful technology could be when designed to connect people rather than simply capturing transactions. But she also learned the risks: if systems are designed only for profit, they become extractive. Mei Lin knew going forward that “technology must be people-centered from the start.”

That conviction crystallized in her work as co-founder and Chair of the People-Centered Internet alongside Internet pioneer Vint Cerf. For her, the Internet’s greatest challenge is trust. Without clear digital rights, individuals risk losing control over their data, their voices, and their dignity. In her essay “AI for Everyone” (Edelman Trust Institute, 2023), she argues that trust begins with transparency, participation, and adapting in response to feedback.

Her interest in resilient systems extends to digital supply chains and finance, which she describes as the “arteries of the global economy.” Drawing on lessons from Singapore’s digital ports and centuries-old Dutch waterschappen — water boards that protected entire communities from floods — she envisions “digital waterschappen” for the 21st century. 

Mei Lin volunteers extensively within IEEE, serving as the liaison to the IEEE Industry Engagement Committee for IEEE-USA, IEEE Humanitarian Technologies, and the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT). Through her involvement, she has developed the belief that IEEE can serve as a lighthouse to guide humanity as it wrestles with questions of how to ensure technology aligns with dignity, equity, and sustainability. 

As founding Chair of IEEE SSIT Sustainability Technical Committee, she’s helped launch the Community Climate Clubs, a youth-led initiative shifting climate anxiety to climate agency, and pioneered Trustworthy AI for healthcare, building participatory governance frameworks for AI. 

“The greatest risk is that AI and digital systems will scale old injustices faster — bias, misinformation, scams, and harms to children,” posits Mei Lin. “The answer is foresight: prevention is better than cure.”

Underlying all of her work is a personal conviction that technology must be designed to help people flourish. “I think of lighthouses as beacons — built not just for their builders, but for strangers they would never meet, and for generations to come,” she says. “We care about others around us and those following us because we are part of a lineage: many before us made choices so we could be here, and we must do the same for those who come after.”

When asked why Mei Lin chooses to support IEEE and the IEEE Foundation philanthropically, she said that, to her, giving back is not charity but stewardship. Giving is a way to honor the lineage of teachers, parents, mentors, and communities that brought us here and ensure the next generation inherits systems of strengths.

“To give back as an IEEE member is to join that lineage of stewardship,” Mei Lin said. “It is to be a lighthouse — spreading the light a little further, so that those who follow not only find safe passage but are inspired to continue the hand over.”To learn more about how you can give back like Mei Lin, click here to learn more, or click here to donate to the IEEE Foundation and make a difference.