Sebastian Man ’79, SM ’80 and Eric Grimson, MIT chancellor for academic advancement.
PHOTO: C Y PHOTOGRAPHY
“The place really opened my eyes,” he recalls, “and sharpened my intellect. It offered me a whole brave, new world. Everything was interesting, and everything was exciting.”
Coming from a high school on the West Coast of the United States, Man vividly recalls his first interaction with other MIT students at the International Student Orientation. “Everyone there wanted to be a nuclear physicist,” he chuckles, remarking that one of the friends he met that day finished a bachelor’s degree in nuclear physics in two and a half years. “I asked myself, ‘What am I doing here with these people?’” Initially intimidated by his peers, Man went on to earn his bachelor’s in three years and his master’s in the year after that, 1980.
In the decades since, Man has been an involved and supportive Institute alumnus, serving on the MIT Corporation Development Committee and the Mechanical Engineering Visiting Committee, among others, even as he conducted a successful and demanding career. Man is the chairman and CEO of Chung Mei International Holdings Limited, a manufacturer of domestic kitchen electrics and air treatment products for major international brands.
Particularly supportive of education, Man is a council member of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, serves on the Board of the Morningside College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and was a member of the court of the University of Hong Kong and the chair of the Harvard Business School Association of Hong Kong. His community activities include serving as a council member of The Better Hong Kong Foundation and executive committee member of the International Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong China Business Council, as well as of many other civic and business organizations. Man is also part of the MIT parent community, as his son, Brandon Man SM ’25, is a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Recently, he made a major gift to the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, naming a key space in the college’s new headquarters on Vassar Street. The college was established in 2018 to build on MIT’s rich history of groundbreaking research and innovation in computing and AI, with a goal of strengthening the computing fields and more effectively connecting computing to every discipline at the Institute. Man’s is the most significant gift to support the building since Stephen A. Schwarzman’s foundational gift established the college.
“This new building is a home for the MIT community and a home for the people who are helping shape the future of computing and AI,” said Schwarzman College of Computing Dean Daniel Huttenlocher SM ’84, PhD ’88, thanking Man and his family at a ceremony last winter. He credited Man’s transformative gift with better positioning the college to achieve its mission of creating a positive impact on society. Man recently accepted an invitation to join the Schwarzman College of Computing Dean’s Advisory Council.
The state-of-the-art college headquarters was designed to support the mission of meeting rapidly changing needs in computing through new approaches to research, education, and real-world engagement. The space provides MIT’s campus with a home base for computing research groups, new classrooms, and convening and event spaces.
“I come from a family where my father taught us that one should always be grateful to those people and places that have helped you to become who you are today,” Man reflects. “The only reason he had the opportunity of receiving education was through scholarships he earned throughout his life. He had a tremendous sense of gratitude to all those institutions that shaped him positively. MIT instilled in me unending intellectual curiosity and the love for the unknown, and I am honored and privileged to be associated with the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.”
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