Jack Ma and Hupan University
Jack Ma is famous as the billionaire founder of Alibaba.com. That’s no mean feat, of course, but Mr. Ma has done a lot more than Alibaba. Among those things was the foundation of Hupan University in China where he has taught some courses personally.
Among the new University’s graduate students is none other than Justin Sun, founder of Tron, and CEO of BitTorrent and the Tron Foundation. He was personally invited by Mr. Ma to study at the new educational institution, and he attended Mr. Ma’s lectures in the flesh. From then on, the two tycoons are thought to be close friends, and Mr. Sun has enjoyed Mr. Ma’s protection. Mr. Sun is credited with being the first millennial to attend and graduate Hupan.
While we can’t really tell how influential his time at Hupan University has been for Mr. Sun’s trajectory, he’s one of the most recognized and successful young entrepreneurs in China. Besides Tron and BitTorrent, he founded PEIWO which is a hugely popular messaging and voice live streaming app in China. He’s also been distinguished by Forbes as one of the prestigious “30 under 30”. So his track record is beyond any doubt.
On top of all that, Tron is obviously one of the better-managed blockchain projects in the world in every possible aspect from marketing and PR to technical matters.
The donation
But we shall assume that Mr. Sun did learn some essential things from Mr. Ma’s university because he’s now willing to show how grateful he is to the institution by giving back something. Cointelegraph announced a few days ago (April 8th) that Mr. Sun donated USD 1.5 million to Hupan Unversity.
Mr. Sun’s generous contribution will help the next class in the institution. It’s comprised of 41 students that represent 14 different Chinese industrial sectors. About half of them come from internet companies while the rest are involved in more traditional economic activities.
Mr. Sun had something to say about the university‘s relevance for professional development:
“Hupan University made a huge impact and difference to me and the company. Without Hupan, Tron will not be what it is today. My entrepreneurship was enlightened and developed there.”
Universities in the world are slowly but surely including blockchain technology as a study subject and as a tool to solve problems in a decentralized way. MIT even created a cryptocurrency of its own. Last February saw the collaborative creation of an encrypted database for educational proficiency documents, fruits of the joint efforts of electronics giants Sony and Fujitsu. The platform enables Japanese speaking schools to compare certificates with data stored in the blockchain to authenticate the documents.
Also in February, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and TalentSpirit (a trading platform) launched an advanced course on fintech and blockchain technology. It will start next month, and it’s designed to attract management and finance professionals and give them skills to deal with the current fintech explosion and its potential influence over the traditional financial system.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.
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