Ming Hsieh, who grew up poor on a farm in China, came to Los Angeles to study at USC. Now, a bit more than 20 years later, he has made a fortune by manufacturing fingerprint-matching devices. He is CEO of Cogent Systems located in South Pasadena. He is donating $35 million to USC’s Engineering School, one of the largest gifts to any engineering school. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)
Dominic Ng, chief executive officer of EastWest BankCorp, has been a pivotal figure in encouraging ethnic Chinese here and abroad to support charitable causes. Ng directed his bank to purchase a multimillion dollar collection of contemporary Chinese art to be then given as gifts to the Museum of Contemporary Art. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
