Kou Voravong
Kou Voravong grew up in Savannakhet and pursued a primary education there. He obtained the « certificat d'études primaires complémentaire indochinois » - Certificate of Indochinese Additional Primary Studies - (CEPCI) in 1930, went afterward to Vientiane and began his first-secondary-school year at the Collège Auguste Pavie. But because of a conflict which opposed him to French Colonial administration, his adopted father was sentenced to prison that same year. As reaction to this situation, Kou Voravong left school and returned to Savannakhet. As an out-of-school teenager, he practiced sports, especially soccer.
Mu-ming Poo
Poo was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China on October 31, 1948. When he was one, his family moved to Taiwan because of the Chinese Communist Revolution. Influenced by his father, an aeronautical engineer, he was interested in physics from a young age. He attended National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, graduating with a degree in physics in 1970.