After studying electrical engineering at National Cheng Kung University, he earned a doctorate at Japan's Keio University, where he wrote his dissertation on optical character recognition systems. This was his first step down the path toward the systems he would later develop at Startek.
成大電機系畢業後，許文星負笈日本慶應大學，他的博士論文探討的就是光學手寫辨識系統，這也是他日後一連串辨識系統研究的第一炮。