Ping Fu's globetrotting and hobnobbing continues.
In January, the CEO of Geomagic visited the Obamas at the White House and attended the President's State of the Union. Last month, she attended a tech conference in Lake Tahoe, where CNBC named Geomagic one of four tech companies to watch. This week, she hung out with late-night icon Jay Leno at his "Big Dog Garage" in Southern California.
Leno and NBC invited Fu and officials from several other tech companies to the garage, which holds his huge car collection. He's repairing a 1920s Dusenberg and wanted to show how technology can be used to fix classic cars, Fu said.
The software made by Geomagic, based in Research Triangle Park, turns physical objects into realistic 3-D models to analyze how to make improvements. Customers include NASA, Nascar and medical-device makers.
"It's a completely different way of doing design and manufacturing," Fu said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
She even got a Leno hug when she told him that his garage is a great showcase for such software.
"I do think having someone like Jay promoting the technology will bring a lot more awareness, and make the technology cool," Fu said. "If you have a new, cutting edge technology and there's no awareness, it doesn't go anywhere."
Her visit was filmed for a "Tonight Show" episode that's scheduled to air in the next couple of weeks. Stayed tuned for more information.
Fu had somewhat spotty cell phone coverage on Wednesday afternoon because she was on a bus in the Nevada desert, heading to her next destination, the Burning Man.
Burning Man is an annual counterculture festival held in the the Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles north of Reno, Nev. The festival runs through Monday and includes a ceremony to torch the event's 40-foot signature effigy. Read more about Burning Man here.
It's Fu's first time at the festival. A friend organized a group of about 100 people to help celebrate his birthday.
One downside (or maybe it's an upside for a busy tech executive) to the attending the event: Fu said she wouldn't have any Internet or phone connections.
