I'm rooting for this brilliant 21-year old woman. You go girl!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

http://www.sacramentoexecutive.com/2006/11/topcoder_targets_the_chinese_m.html

see all of the comments that show the very negative reaction to this appointment in China

here is a sample

Hi Gillian,

It seems that this event is still highly debated in china. I just read the most updated news by sina(one of China's largest portals). I manually corrected some mistakes by Google Translate.

Title: Senior girl become vice president, school admitted that her invention has been exaggerated
http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2006-12-15/022011793757.shtml

Investigated by our reporters(http://www.thebeijingnews.com/), Ying-Ying Wu's basic material is not completely false, but these questions are not groundless. Ying-Ying Wu has never mentioned the 100 inventions, and 1 of her 3 patents is not passed yet. Also, she is not a member of ACM officers. Yesterday, Beijing Normal University admitted 100 inventions have not been verified, it is hard to say, and also clearly that she only has two patents. The positions and awards are exaggerated by her.

Ying-Ying Wu did not have any response for phones and text messages from reporters. TopCoder company has also been questioned in this incident by its "commercial motivation".

Doubt point 1: 100 inventions?

Words by Wu :
"the annual selection in 2006 National University star has just begun. My life has just completed a 100 inventions, and I hope the invention can make contributions for the country. "(October 10, 2006. her talk during a press release conference. In a number of her materials, Ying-Ying Wu have claimed 100 inventions. )

Internet users questioned:
......

Investigated by reporters :

Reporters investigated audio and text material provided by Ying-Ying Wu, and found only mentioned 100 inventions, but those have never been invented 100 list.

"100 is a virtual digital invention. "Yesterday afternoon, deputy party secretary of Beijing Normal University psychology college Qiaozhihong said. Ying-Ying Wu mentioned 100 inventionsin the materials, but have not been verified by the school. "Ying-Ying Wu did not rule out her inventions in her high school, we can not verify that much. "

Doubt point 2: ACM officers had been incorrectly translated into?

Words by Wu :
"November 15, 2005, I was elected ACM Asia assistant chair, became the first Chinese to enter the ACM board of chairs, then invited to attend the 30th International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals and the highest summit RCDS. "(From Ying-Ying Wu's words in the conference)

Internet users questioned:
......

Investigated by reporters :
The report was not found Ying-Ying Wu's name on the official website of the ACM. In ACM (ICPC) Executive Director William Boucher wrote a letter in English to prove Ying-Ying Wu, Ying-Ying Wu specify the duties of "Asia - China Reporter and Asia Director Assistant" (April 12, 2006). Yesterday afternoon, the deputy party secretary of Beijing Normal University psychology college Qiaozhihong said Ying Wu is not a member of the ACM board of chairs, but ACM programming contest organizing committee's assistant. It might be a translation mistake.

Doubt point 3: TopCoder company's promotion strategy?

Internet users questioned:
TopCoder has not started business in China yet. Ying-Ying Wu is likely to be done through a hot speculation CEO to achieve the purpose of advertising.

Investigated by reporters :
Afternoon press conference before the investigation on December 7. Ying-Ying Wu gave a black bag to each media write "TopCoder" the company name from . There is a pink folder, filled with the personal introduction and certificates of award. In the folder, there are information on the company, the China market development plan , also hire document of Ying-Ying Wu signed by the public relations office of the company, and in particular, marked "Please released as soon as possible." According to the information available, and TopCoder she has signed a contract in August this year. But since no outside media coverage. Until December 7, Beijing Normal University, held a press conference.

Last eve, reporters called headquarters of the TopCoder at the U.S., the company public relations director Jimumaikelun said Ying-Ying is Wu excellent, and I believe her achievements are true. Ying-Ying Wu offices located in Asia, but now has just established, to be fully operational next week. Ying-Ying Wu is the only one Asian office staff. Whether it is a commerical promotion, he did not reply.

Doubt point 4. ACM Asian finals silver medal is false?

Words of Wu:
"of strenuous training, I won the 29th ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Asian finals silver medal, personally realized the breakthrough of International Collegiate Programming Contest in the history of the medal is zero for Beijing Normal University . "(her talk during a press release conference)

Investigated by reporters :
......

Investigated by reporters :
A reporter investegated at the website of Beijing Normal University College of Information Science and Technology, Ying-Ying Wu 2005 team, they do have a member named Wen-Bi Tang, Beijing Normal University intern Shaoxing China as a senior student in high school. According to ACM rule, the participants have to be college students, their result was cancelled.

Yesterday, the then leader of the Graduate School of Information Management Hao Zhou said, time after time, the gold-Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the ACM Asia particularly, They form of the team is invited teams. "He asked, above that such competitions are effective. "But this seems to be the organizing committee of the Chengdu stadium dissatisfied with the outcome, ICPC not ranked in the top Beijing Normal University. ACM home page on the official website confirmed China will issue a list of achievements that year Chengdu Match Point 1-24 at Beijing Normal University who is not contingent, Beijing Normal University where the top three teams Ying-Ying Wu "SHISHI team," is not listed in the rankings list, dozens of these teams, gold medal winners were not the show.

Doubt point 5.
......

(http://news.chinabyte.com/262/3003262.shtml)
Also, I read another recent news by chinabyte, one of the IT online newspaper in China. They got some feedbacks from Beijing Normal University about her achievement. One point is the same as the doubt point 4. She exaggerated her another achievement.

Ying-Ying Wu, in her publicity materials, she won "International The Mathematical Contest in Modeling second prize in the world finals." The source said that the so-called international global The Mathematical Contest in Modeling finals is just the The Mathematical Contest in Modeling of United States. Many students can participate, many students of Beijing Normal University won the first prize. As long as applicants pay an application fee (45$), they will got the third prize.

In my opinion, according to point 3, the company knows everything about this. I think it is just a commerial promotion strategy by the company and her, and they succeed. However, they lie to and mislead a lot of college students and media, which should ashamed.

Steve

That interview by the Women of China was published on 12/8, before the scandal broke out.

The timeline is:Topcoder's press release on October 25; Press conference given by Wu and Beijing Normal University(now this school claim that they did not check on what she told them) on December 7; Chinese Media's glowing report on her between December 8 to December 10; then Chinese netter's digging and questioning followed by media's investigation.

Hey, thanks for taking me here. I am also among those who are interested in knowing the truth. As far as I am concerned, I tend to believe the best in this girl. But the stark reality (including sources from bloggers)has started to make me believe she's been faking it all. She might just have "exaggerated" the truth a little bit, but given that I am a scientist I instinctively hate people who lie at all. Lies, insignificant as they might be, cannot be accepted by the science community.

Basically I think whether or not TopCoder has ever used Yingying Wu as its commericial promotion is not important, the point being I hope TopCoder is not helping Yingying Wu make things up to cheat the public. In that case, not only can the company be discredited in China, but also Yingying life can be greatly damaged.

Anyway, before everything is clear, I sincerely hope everything is ok with Yingying.

The following is an article related to this incident I translated from a Chinese website. There must be some mistakes, but as you said, they are better than google translation:)

Chinese Version From (www.lqqm.net)

Yingying Wu, the 21 year old “talented girl” from Peking Normal University, was recently announced “Vice President of Operation” in Asia by Topcoder. The third year girl, who is the new upcoming legend, has become a “promotional figure” by her University and the Ministry of Education.

So, should you believe what you hear?

From news media, we know that the girl is in possession of “over a hundred inventions and three national patents”[Source1, details on the inventions and patents].(Link in Chinese)

http://stu.people.com.cn/GB/65534/4736353.html

“Yingying Wu, class of 2007, Peking Normal University, is playing an impressive melody with her twenty years devotion. She has made more than one hundred inventions and three national patents during the past fifteen years in which she was devoted to innovation; for the first time, she has glorified her University by winning the international software design competition which is unprecedented…(from Chinese news report)”

“On her way to innovation in the past decade, she has never ceased achieving. These achievements include: more than one hundred inventions, three of which are patented in China and some other are in the process of international patent application…”

(From Chinese new report)

http://news.sohu.com/20061209/n246922261.shtml

Put it this way, “more than one hundred inventions and three national patents” are the corner stones of her legend. What are these inventions? What can be called an invention? I trust most of you have tried at some point to make handcrafts of some sort, so can we call Mr. Pumpkin on Halloween your new invention, despite how much effort you put into it or how many hours you spend carving it? We have no source whatsoever to validate how many inventions she really has because you can’t stop her from talking after all. But we did hear what she said during an interview with Sohu.com, a major Chinese website:”

“All my inventions originate from my life.”

Interviewer: “I am sure you remember your very first invention, so, can you tell me what had motivated you?”

Wu: “I think all my inventions are from life and based on life, like my first invention, the ‘water-absorbing flower pot’. I used to live with my grandpa when I was little, I saw him watering the flower with a water tank twice a day. I asked him why he had to water the flowers so frequently, and I was told that watering the flowers twice a day keeps the soil moist. I remembered what he said then. Then I said to myself: Is there a way in which my grandpa doesn’t have to water the flowers so frequently and meanwhile the flowers won’t die from drought? Then I read from the children’s encyclopedia that when you put one end of a towel in a basin full of water, keeping the other end out of the basin, the water can be emptied gradually. Then I got inspiration from it. By a lot of trials and modifications, I finally had this invention: I put a small flower pot inside a bigger one and filled the middle area with water. And I used a thread to connect them. This way, the flowers can keep moist all the time.”

Oh my God, we finally know what invention is! During the interview, she never again mentioned anything about her invention, but instead was more focused on her dances and readings.”

If we don’t have the proper sources to verify her “more than one hundred inventions”, then what we can search is her “three national patents”, right? If you are not familiar with patents, then you might think them as untouchable. But the truth is, almost anything, from an idea to a design, can be patented as long as you pay for it.

Now, let’s take a close look at her patents (searching from key words “Wu, Yingying” as one of the inventors)

http://211.157.104.66/sipo/zljs/default.htm

(Chinese website)

# Patent No. Patent Name

1 00113090.0

　　 Dictionary Indexing and a Prompt way to look up in a Dictionary

2 99233230.3

　　 A spoon with a hook

3 00223593.5

A prompt way to look up in a dictionary

4 01275751.9

Water recycling for Laundry, bathing and dishwasher

Out of which, “spoon with hook” is patent from a “Wu, yingying” born in Hubei Province (Not where she is born, which is indicative of the fact that this invention is from another person with the same name as hers), it says “Spoon with hook is a daily kitchen utensil composed of stem (1), spoon (2), and hook (3). The best advantage of the invention is that the spoon can be hooked up to a container to prevent itself from slipping into it. And it is easy to produce.”

As for the “water recycling one”, it is also not this “Wu, Yingying” we are talking about. So, the only inventions left for “our Yingying”are “ Dictionary Indexing and a Prompt way to look up in a Dictionary” and “A prompt way to look up in a dictionary”. As a matter of fact, her two inventions can be seen as one due to their duplication. Let’s have a look at it. “Abstract: This invention describes a speedy way to look up dictionaries including Chinese and English dictionaries, and also including teaching materials and literature. By labeling the first one or two letter that index the content in the dictionary, a quicker way to look something up can be achieved. This invention not also helps faster reading but also makes the dictionary less vulnerable to damages.”

Now you see what her invention really is. One of the reported invention”Fast Indexing Tech. for OPEN book Series”, however, is nowhere to be found in the database of patent office. The dictionary one was patented in the year 2000. (when she was 15). However, the contradictory fact is that she was reported as the winner of 2004 National College Student Venture Project because of the so called invention “Fast Indexing Tech. for OPEN book Series. Let’s think about that: isn’t that strange you can find her invention dating back to 2000 but no records of the big invention from year 2004?

　　 The story on her “Silver Medal of 29th ACM International College Student Software Design” is yet more fishy, look:

http://www.sjtu.edu.cn/newsnet/newsdisplay.php?id=2971(Link, Chinese website)

From the link, it has been clearly stated that “Shanghai Jiaotong University is the ONLY Winner University from Asia, followed by Fudang University, Peking University and Hongkong University, ranking 6th, 11th, and 12th, respectively. We don’t see Peking Normal University at all!

http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=pressroom&d2=pr_102506

It is more ridiculous on her story “…she is the first Chinese to have been the ACM Chair Committee…”, the fact is there are no Chinese people (except for Chinese American professors) there in the committee. She is actually only a paid member of ACM, that’s all!

In a word, people have been fooled by some invalid reports. And then the girl is believed to be “a female scientist with more than one hundred inventions”, and “Chair Committee Member of ACM” and “Well known Vice President of Asia”, and “Silver Medal Winner of ACM Design Competition.” This whole thing is a joke!

Let’s wish her luck!

only one thing I don't understand....TopCoder says Wu is a graduate student at Stanford, but seems we are talking about a senior college student in China?

reply to dOrIS,

Topcoder and she tried to mislead the public that she is a graduate student at Stanford. However, she only joined a summer program for undergraduate students at Stanford (her blog http://acmwyy.spaces.live.com/blog/)
(Also See:
http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=pressroom&d2=pr_102506)
Wu is currently a student at California's Stanford University in the graduate program of the university's Department of Psychology.

In the interview, she misleaded the reporter that she gave up her master program in Stanford, but she is only a senior student in college. (http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/4883a5270100079r)

She also wrote Stanford as her graduated institute on her Instant messaging(QQ) contact information (http://news.cctv.com/society/20061215/100065_1.shtml)

Jason

Wu is a liar. First, she bragged about the 100 inventions she's made and the 3 patents she held; as it turned out, she only held 2 patents, all of which relating to a indexing method for dictionaries. She bragged about the silver medal she won at the ACM Asian contest; but the truth is that her team did win a silver medal at the local ACM prequalification contest, but later the medal was withheld by the organisers, because they found the university had a high school student on their team. She also bragged that two certain lines of her brain waves are longer than the ordinary people! God knows... What irritates the Chinese netters the most was the fact that her score at the National College Entrance Examination was only 514, much lower than what was required (590 points) to be admitted by Beijing Normal University. She explained she got admitted anyway because special considerations were given to her dancing talent. But the normal practice for such cases is that the requirement would be lowered by 50 points. The netters also found out that her grades were not high enough to got admitted by her senior high school (a top school in her home town), but coincidentally she also got admitted because special considerations were given to her dancing talents. I hope her dancing talents will help TopCoder succeed in China!

To Jason,

She is not currently a student in CSU. She just went into colledge of Beijing Normal Univer. in 2003. SHe is still an undergraduate!

It's so crazy that Topcoder hiring the girl. I am a Senior Leader of an US owned WOFE in China, I know very clearly about some Chinese students' Cheating action. In fact, it's obvious that Miss Wu cheat everybody. She's a big liar. Almost 90% in her resume is not true, and even CCTV2(Chinese Government owned TV station, please goto: http://vsearch.cctv.com/play.jsp?storyref=20061215_CCTV2_News_1150_512.245_608.240&ref=20061215_CCTV2_News_1150_512.245_608.240) gave the same thinking about the case, in the show they think the girl gave a lie! To my surprise, why Topcoder, a us company dare to hire a liar? Are you Crazy? Please go to China to have a look, in Tianya(www.tianyaclub.com),Sina(www.sina.com), Netease(www.163.com), Sohu(www.sohu.com), even People(www.people.com.cn) and China(www.china.com), almost all of Chinese main Website gave similar suspicious!There are thousands post to show their suspicion, even angry about the lie of Wu)
And I think it's almost the biggest Scandal for the Education field in Mainland China in 2006

Wu is a liar.And that's a joke in China now.

i am gradually accustomed to all the fake events. I am sorry. I just worry. what should we deal with when the fake become the true. I hate dishonesty. She, a undergraduate in a famous university, is cheating and fooling all the people..

I am a member of topcoder.
I am from China.
I am shame of topcoder since then.
Chinese are brilliant, don't fool Chinese by this way.

It is very unfortunate that TopCoder hires a top liar. We can confirm now Ms Wu has said a whopper to whole China. However I don't think TopCoder is the hatcher of this scandal. But if they keep silence and doing nothing to the liar, the distrust of them will grow larger and larger.

really ashamed of such shabby puff of an ordinary student.

topcoder becomes fameless in China.

The young in China are angry at the scandal because the cheater got the high reward and did not get punishment.
A sample course in Stanford became the master course, and an undergraduate became a master of Stanford in her resume.
Now Topcoder is famous in China, but in a fameless way.

It is very ridiculous that TopCoder hires a top liar for so called business promotion. If TopCoder just wants to be known in China, they are successful. But I believe anyone would pay one day for their dishonesty, ANYONE.

Swindler

If TopCoder just wants to get some news coverage in China, they have got it. Now it is time for TopCoder to come out and distance itself with this liar Wu. Otherwise, TopCoder will either be known as a naive company who continues to believe such a liar after the lie is exposed, or as a manipulating company who uses lies to promote itself. Either of these two images will make TopCoder a joke in China.

if this is a comm promotion to open the Chinese market, and Topcoder expects this as 'unique' ad., Congrs! y did it very well...but not positive one!
hope this 'talented dancer' can draw much more 'attention' later on, and so the Topcoder...

Maybe you all make a mistake!~~I just guess...

Sina news said her colledge has admitted "some of" information in her resume are not true...

I don't question Topcoder's strategy. The company maybe want media coverage, maybe want be noticed by the Chinese in a short time. Anyway, the company have their own reasons to do this, for good or for bad...
But, I question the young woman, who lies in every aspect of her C.V. She even didn't mention the Chinese University she attended in some places. But claims that "as a student from Stanford". She attend, but a short term program in Stanford, which lasted no more than 20 days!
In her profile sometimes she wrote: University: Standford, Major: Psychology.
A people cann't be so shamless by doing such ugly things!

You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

---Abraham Lincoln