The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Taiwan 2007 ceremony was held at the Sheraton Taipei Hotel last Friday night, November 23rd. D-Link Corporation Chairman and CEO Ken Kao, who has been dedicated to building the Taiwanese brand for the past 21 years, earned the Technology and Communication Entrepreneur Award. The award categories include Service Entrepreneur Award, Consumer and Traditional Entrepreneur Award, Female Entrepreneur Award, Cultural and Creative Entrepreneur Award, and Technology and Communication Entrepreneur Award. The winners include 104 human resource bank CEO, Giant group CEO, Nature Beauty group Chairman, and Performance workshop chief director.

D-Link Corporation Chairman and CEO Ken Kao created D-Link in 1986, determined to go forward and create his own brand. More than 20 years of dedicated effort has given D-Link full product lines that embody the brand's core spirit of "Building Networks for People". D-Link's market share for Q2 2007 was No.1 in the global consumer networking product market, which includes switches, wireless, and broadband equipment. D-Link was listed in BusinessWeek magazine's IT 100 for global information technology in June 2007, and has earned a place in Interbrand's Top 10 Taiwanese Brands for four years in a row. This year's ranking climbed to 6th, the brand value is up to $347 million USD, and the growth ratio is up to 37%. These figures show D-Link Corporation Chairman and CEO Ken Kao truly deserves this award.

The "Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year" award was established by Ernst & Young. It's the first international award to praise the entrepreneur, and this is the 21st anniversary of this award. All candidates and winners for this entrepreneur award are chosen through public appraisal according to a unified global evaluation standard used by a prestigious independent committee. The evaluation standards include the spirit of entrepreneur, the performance of corporate finance, strategic orientation, country and global influence, innovative spirit, and personal morals and influence. The winners over the years have included Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Dell's Michael Dell, Starbucks's Howard Schultz, eBay's Pierre Omidyar, America Online's Steve Case, and Sun Microsystems's Scott McNealy. This year the independent committee of Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year was lead by the president of the Taiwan evaluation association, Mr. Sheu Shi-Jun. The independent committee reviewed the nomination information, visited corporations, met with candidates, and took into account the process of starting an enterprise, including the spirit and achievements for each candidate. According to this information they chose the candidates and winners.

During the ceremony, D-Link Chairman and CEO Ken Kao said, "I feel deeply honored to earn this award 21 years after starting this enterprise, but I am willing to attribute the success to every employee in D-Link for their effort in the job. It was difficult to start the enterprise, and defending its success has not been easy. Every employee has sincerely contributed their effort to keep the enterprise growing with flexibility and energy since the beginning of the enterprise. Every employee can defend the enterprise's success and keep innovation alive." Just as Ernst & Young Chairman James Turley said, "The entrepreneur not only imagines the future, but also creates the future." D-Link Chairman and CEO Ken Kao is an entrepreneur, a dream builder, and even more, an ideal fulfiller. D-Link can certainly create another bright and honorable 21 years under Chairman and CEO Mr. Kao's excellent leadership.