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Neil Pappalardo, founder and CEO of Meditech
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The chairman of U.S. medical software company Meditech, Neil Pappalardo, is to donate US$2.5 million to Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. It is rare for a foreigner without special ties with Korea to make such a generous contribution to a domestic university. KAIST on Monday said Pappalardo (65) promised the money to KAIST president Seo Nam-pyo, who was visiting the U.S. The university said the donation will be transferred by the end of this year and plans to build a medical center with it.
Pappalardo is a second-generation Italian immigrant. He graduated in electric engineering from MIT in 1964 and started researching clinical computing at a general hospital in Massachusetts. In 1968, he established Meditech, a software and system provider for medical facilities with 2,500 employees. Meditech¡¯s earnings amounted to $331 million last year. Some 2,100 general hospitals around the world including in the U.S., U.K. and Canada use meditech software.
In September, Park Byeong-joon, the chairman of Bureau Veritas CPS, donated $10 million to KAIST, the largest amount of money an overseas Korean ever donated to his homeland. KAIST vice president of operations Chang Soon-heung said, ¡°It¡¯s great pleasure to see a series of donations coming from abroad. But I wish more donations would come from Korea. If domestic universities are to compete with prestigious global universities, we need to establish a donation culture in Korean society.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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