Sim Wong Hoo

Sim Wong Hoo (Chinese: 沈望傅; pinyin: Shěn Wàng Fù; born 1955) is the founder, CEO and Chairman of Creative Technology, a designer and manufacturer of products for personal computers and personal digital entertainment devices. Creative is notable for products such as the SoundBlaster audio card and the Creative ZEN range of audio and media products.

Sim Wong Hoo was born in Singapore and is an alumnus of Bukit Panjang Government High School. He graduated from the Electrical & Electronic Engineering faculty of Ngee Ann Polytechnic (then known as Ngee Ann Technical College) in 1975, after which he worked in the private engineering sector.

On 1 July 1981, with an initial capital outlay of US$6,000, Sim (along with former schoolmate Ng Kai Wa) founded Creative Technology in the form of a computer repairs shop in Pearl's Centre, which is located at Chinatown. There he developed and sold an add-on memory board for the Apple II computer. Later, Creative began creating customized PCs adapted for the Chinese language, including enhanced audio capabilities that allowed the devices to produce speech and melodies. The success of this audio interface led to the development of the stand-alone sound card named Sound Blaster. It was among the first dedicated audio processing cards to be made widely available to the general consumer. Creative dominated the PC audio market until the 2000s, when OEM PCs began to be built with sound boards integrated directly onto the motherboard and the Sound Blaster found itself reduced to a niche product.

Sim Wong Hoo has won accolades from industry and government for his prolific innovations. This includes his winning Singapore’s Public Star Medal Bintang Bakti Masyarakat in 2001 for his outstanding achievements in the business field; being named in second spot as Asia’s Businessman of the Year in January 2001 by Fortune Magazine; winning the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from organisers of the European DVD summit in April 2000; and by being appointed Chairman of Singapore’s Technopreneurship 21 Private Sector Committee in March 1999.

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