NUS' School of Computing gets $50m boost from home-grown company Sea
Home-grown tech company Sea, which owns e-commerce platform Shopee and game developer Garena, has donated $50 million to the National University of Singapore (NUS) for research and education in the field of computing.
This is the largest corporate gift the university has received to date. The funds will go to NUS' School of Computing (NUS Computing), which has about 4,200 undergraduates and 1,020 PhD and master's students.
NUS president Tan Eng Chye said yesterday at a signing ceremony that the donation will support the university's work in research and education in critical, fast-growing areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data science.
It will also be used for recruiting and grooming academic and research talents through scholarships, research fellowships, visiting professorships and professional development. Other initiatives that the gift will support include seed grants for enterprising projects and outreach programmes, said Professor Tan.
Mr Forrest Li, founder and group chief executive of Sea, said the contribution marks the deepening of a long-term partnership between Sea and NUS.
"Academia and industry make powerful partners. Together, we can turn deep knowledge and experimental research into practical and scalable solutions that can uplift entire societies.
"This gift will allow us to accelerate the impact that academic research can have on real-world challenges and create high-value jobs in emerging fields," said Mr Li, who will join the NUS board of trustees on Thursday.
At yesterday's event held at NUS' Kent Ridge campus, Education Minister Lawrence Wong said that Sea's contribution complements the Government's efforts and investments in technology.
"Crisis has prompted all of us to reflect deeper on what's really important to us and the kind of society we want Singapore to be," said Mr Wong.
"We want a fairer and more equal society, a greener and more sustainable nation, and an inclusive and more united Singapore."
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