Photo/Website of University of Hong Kong

On April 21st, Jack Ma, founder of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, has been made an honorary professor of business at the University of Hong Kong, the school announced on Friday. 

Jack Ma Foundation has reportedly confirmed that Jack Ma received an invitation from the University of Hong Kong last month and it is highly consistent with Jack Ma's entrepreneurial experience and philosophy.

In 1995, Dr Ma founded China's first online business directory, China Pages. This entrepreneurial experience made him understand the difficulties facing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In 1999, he led a team to establish Alibaba.com with the goal of helping SMEs succeed.

The Alibaba Group's mission from the start has been "to make it easy to do business anywhere". The company is now the world's largest e-commerce platform and a world-leading big data platform, serving tens of millions of SMEs and entrepreneurs around the globe with technologies such as e-commerce, online financial services, cloud computing and smart logistics.

In terms of education, the Jack Ma Foundation carries out the Rural Teacher Program, which supports 100 rural teachers every year, and the Teacher Education Quality Improvement Program, which focuses on education equity, both of which are important work content for Jack Ma at present.

Agriculture and technological innovation are also the focus of Jack Ma's research. In recent years, he has visited dozens of cities in China and abroad in this field. Last year, he was appointed as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo and Tel Aviv University, where he focused on research on advanced agriculture and technological innovation.