By Li Nai
Special to the Tsinghua News Center
At a ceremony held in the Main Building, Mr. LEE Shau Kee and Mr. LEE Ka Kit were named Honorary Trustees of Tsinghua University on March 2nd, 2008.
Tsinghua President GU Binglin attended the ceremony and conferred the letters of appointment on Mr. LEE Shau Kee and his eldest son Mr. LEE Ka Kit. President Gu noted that Mr. LEE Shau Kee has made huge contributions to China’s public welfare undertakings, especially in supporting education. His entrepreneurship, pioneering spirit and strong sense of social responsibility have deeply influenced Tsinghua students.
After the ceremony, Mr. Lee delivered a speech in which he shared his experiences in business and public charity.
Mr. LEE Shau Kee is one of the most celebrated businessmen in Hong Kong. He and some of his friends founded Hong Kong Pei Hua Education Foundation in 1982 in order to support education in China. In the past 20 years the Foundation has sponsored more than 400 education projects which have served the needs of over 14,000 people. In 2005, Mr. LEE Shau Kee donated RMB 300 million to establish the Warmth Project Foundation, which aims to provide training services for poor, mainly minority farmers to enable them to shake off poverty. Now about one million farmers and 11,000 village doctors have received job skill training through the project. Moreover, Mr. LEE Shau Kee donated RMB 100 million to support the construction of the National Aquatic Center, also known as the Water Cube. For his great contributions to the business world and public welfare, he was awarded the Asian Entrepreneur Achievement Award and HKSAR’s highest honor, the “Grand Bauhinia Medal”.
Tsinghua Vice President CHEN Jining presided at the ceremony. Mr. WANG Shucheng, the former Minister of Water Resources, Mrs. Rita FAN HSU Lai-tai, President of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), and more than 500 of Mr. Lee’s family and friends and Tsinghua teachers and students attended the ceremony.
