Tencent's Pony Ma Funding a University
Very fascinating. "China has approved a new private university in Hangzhou, the hometown of tech giant Aliababa, called Westlake University. The school will focus on advanced scientific research and will primarily accept doctoral candidates. Westlake has already attracted staff from prestigious American universities as well as funding from Tencent's Pony Ma and Wanda's Wang Jianlin. Founder Shi Yigong envisions that in 15 years, the university will be on par with Caltech", Fortune reports. Just like American barons, the Chinese are now moving into funding private universities.
Shi Yigong’s audacious vision for Westlake University as a magnet for China’s best and brightest is already beginning to take shape.
Two of the most recent additions to Shi’s faculty are neurobiology researcher Jia Jiemin, lured home last year from a Texas university, and diabetes researcher Wu Liangeng, who left a position at Harvard University in late 2017. Both in their late 30s, Jia and Wu are among a parade of young, foreign-trained scientists who are helping to build China’s first doctorate-granting private university in eastern China’s picturesque city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.
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