On March 1, Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, issued a document saying that Xiaomi Public Welfare would donate 100 million yuan to the National Natural Science Commission of China to fund basic research projects for young students and support undergraduates to carry out basic research.
In recent years, it is not uncommon for well-known entrepreneurs and enterprises to donate large amounts, and in terms of donations, there are relatively many donations in the field of education. At the end of November last year, on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of Wuhan University, Lei Jun, as a 1987 alumnus of the Department of Computer Science of Wuhan University, donated 1.3 billion yuan to his alma mater.
Xiaomi donated 100 million yuan
On March 1, Lei Jun posted on Weibo that Xiaomi Public Welfare will donate 100 million yuan to the National Natural Science Commission to fund basic research projects for young students and support undergraduates to carry out basic research.
Lei Jun said that supporting and cultivating young scientific and technological talents is one of the core purposes of the Xiaomi Public Welfare Association. Among them, the "Xiaomi Scholarship and Grant" project is for full-time undergraduate and master's students in colleges and universities, with an investment of 500 million yuan; The "Xiaomi Young Scholars" project is aimed at young teachers and researchers in the fields of computer, electronics, communications, and basic disciplines, with an investment of 500 million yuan to support young talents who have made outstanding achievements in the field of science and have obvious innovation potential.
According to Xiaomi's WeChat, the "National Natural Science ** Basic Research Project for Young Students" signed this time aims to move the funding port forward, select talents as soon as possible, cultivate scientific literacy, encourage innovative research, and provide "living water" for the construction of a high-quality basic research talent team.
It is reported that this donation is also the first time in the history of the National Natural Science Commission to accept social donations.
Xiaomi.
Dou Xiankang, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the National Natural Science Commission, pointed out that the National Natural Science Commission focuses on basic research, applied basic research and the cultivation of scientific and technological talents, continuously improves the efficiency of funding, and constantly improves the diversified investment mechanism of science. In addition to establishing alliances with local, enterprise and industry departments, the National Natural Science Commission has been exploring the establishment of an effective mechanism for social and individual investment in the form of donations or establishments, and actively opening up new channels for basic research investment. The cooperation between the "National Natural Science Foundation for Young Students" and the Xiaomi Public Welfare Association is another pioneering work of the National Natural Science Committee in exploring the investment of social resources in basic research, which opened the prelude to the acceptance of social donations by science, and provides strong support for improving the effectiveness of national natural science and its joint funding and supporting the cultivation of young scientific and technological talents.
Lei Jun said that the national natural science has made an important contribution to the comprehensive cultivation of China's source innovation ability, which is admirable. Xiaomi is deeply honored to be the first social donor accepted by the National Natural Science Commission. Over the past few years, Xiaomi has attached great importance to basic research and insisted on long-term investment, and last year upgraded its technology strategy to "deep cultivation of underlying technologies, long-term continuous investment, deep integration of software and hardware, and comprehensive empowerment of AI". Driven by Xiaomi's technology strategy, Xiaomi's R&D personnel currently account for more than half of the total number of employees, and R&D spending is expected to exceed 25 billion in 2024. Since its establishment, the Xiaomi Charity Association has focused on three directions: poverty alleviation, talent training, and scientific and technological innovation, and has successively set up projects such as "Xiaomi Scholarship and Grant" and "Xiaomi Young Scholars", and has been continuously investing in the cultivation of scientific research talents. This donation is another important measure to help cultivate young talents on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Xiaomi Charity Association.
Education is the main direction of donation
In recent years, there have been many large-scale donations from well-known entrepreneurs and enterprises.
On December 20, 2023, Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, donated 200 million yuan to his alma mater, University of Science and Technology of China, in his personal name, to support the construction of the junior class building of USTC and help his alma mater in basic scientific research innovation and talent training. This donation is also the largest alumni donation since the establishment of USTC. In addition, Yang Yuanqing has also initiated donations to Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tsinghua University. In 2015, Yang Yuanqing donated 10 million yuan to Shanghai Jiao Tong University to set up an education** to subsidize outstanding students and outstanding young teachers in the Department of Computer Science. In April 2021, Yang Yuanqing announced that he would personally invest 100 million yuan to build a green water-cooled high-performance computing center for Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In September 2022, Yang Yuanqing donated funds to Qiuzhen College of Tsinghua University in his personal name to help the country's basic scientific research and innovation and cultivate more world-class mathematical talents who have grown up in China. In addition, Lenovo Group also initiated a donation to Tsinghua University to support the cultivation of talents at Tsinghua University.
On November 29, 2023, on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of Wuhan University, Lei Jun, as a 1987 alumnus of the Department of Computer Science of Wuhan University, donated 1.3 billion yuan to his alma mater. Lei Jun said that the donation mainly focuses on three directions: supporting the basic research of mathematics, physics, chemistry, literature, history and philosophy, supporting scientific and technological innovation in the field of computer, and supporting the training of college students. It is reported that this donation is the largest single donation since the establishment of Wuhan University, and it is also the largest personal cash donation from alumni received by universities in China.
In September last year, Kweichow Moutai announced that it planned to donate 100 million yuan to the China Youth Development Association to carry out the 2023 "China Moutai, Pillars of the Nation" public welfare student assistance activities. It is understood that since 2012, the China Youth Development Association, the Guizhou Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League and Kweichow Moutai have launched a large-scale public welfare student assistance activity of "China Moutai, Pillars of the Country", Kweichow Moutai has donated 100 million yuan every year to subsidize college freshmen who have excellent character and academic performance but have financial difficulties in participating in the college entrance examination that year and are admitted to full-time ordinary colleges and universities.
In the same month, Huafon Chemical announced that the company plans to donate to the Zhejiang Ruian Middle School Education Development Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Ruian Middle School Association") in phases from 2023 to 2026, with a total donation amount of 500 million yuan to prepare for the establishment of a school that is "first-class in the province, leading in the Yangtze River Delta, and influential in the country".
In July last year, Country Garden Services announced that Yang Huiyan, the company's controlling shareholder, non-executive director and chairman of the board of directors, donated 67.5 billion shares for charitable purposes. Based on Country Garden Services' share price at that time, the equity value of the donation was approximately HK$6.4 billion.
In May last year, Muyuan announced that the company had voluntarily donated 100 million yuan to the Hangzhou West Lake Education Association. The donated funds will be used by the Hangzhou Westlake Education Association to fund the construction and development of public welfare education and scientific research undertakings of Westlake University or related to it, including but not limited to the long-term development of talent construction, discipline construction, infrastructure construction, student training, academic exchanges, scientific research and other personnel salary incentives and subsidies.
In November last year, the Hurun Research Institute released the 2023 Hurun Charity List. Among the philanthropists on the list, the number of donors to the education sector is still the largest, with 58% of the philanthropists on the list making contributions to education. In terms of social welfare, the number of donors ranked second, accounting for 19%. The number of donors in the field of rural revitalization accounted for 12%, ranking third.
Editor-in-charge: Wan Jianyi.
Proofreading: Zhu Tianting.