Pham Hy Hieu (in white shirt) is a math talent

Hieu is a familiar name in the mathematicians’ community in Vietnam. He is also well known as a student who turned down internship opportunities offered by Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. 

Hieu now focuses on research on artificial intelligence (AI) at Google. According to Forbes, in 2015-2017, Hieu published six scientific reports in AI and machine learning journals with 630 citations.

Math talent

Hieu began having a passion for math in the fourth grade. However, surprisingly, he was not good at math during secondary education. His father, considering his modest achievements in math, advised him to give up the dream of applying for a high school for the gifted.

However, Hieu successfully entered the prestigious school where he developed a love for math.

When Hieu was in the 10th grade, he won the gold medal at the 30/4 Olympiad, silver medal at the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad and consolidation prize at the HN-AMS Olympiad. 

Later, as an 11th grader, he won third prize at the national mathematics competition, silver medal at the 2009 International Math Olympiad (IMO) and other prizes.

The silver medal brought a full scholarship to fund his study at the National University of Singapore. However, he refused the opportunity, because he was planning to study at a university in the US.

In 2011, five prestigious universities accepted Hieu’s application and Hieu decided to study computing science at Stanford with 4-year scholarship. 

When he was a second-year university student, Hieu passed the interview round organized by Google to seek interns, but he was rejected because of lack of experience.

At third year at university, Google invited Hieu to return for internship there, but he refused the opportunity. One year later, Google offered an official job, but he once again refused because the internship policy remained unchanged.

Hieu then was offered a job to work for Vmware which helped change his view about computing science and contributed to his decision to focus on AI research.

In 2015, Hieu received "The Ben Wegbreit" award for the student with best thesis. He was invited to work job by Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. However, he turned down the opportunities to apply for the Carnegie Mellon University doctoral program.

In 2016, Hieu accepted his third invitation from Google, joining the team to develop apps for Google Brain.

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Thanh Lich