Qifang Is Named The World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer

World Economic Forum (WEF) has just announced its Technology Pioneer 2009 earlier today, and Qifang (report on TechCrunch), the leading Chinese P2P student lending site becomes the first Chinese company to receive this prestigious honor. If you are bored with many copy-to-china stories, this is absolutly a great and encouraging news for China web.

Reading from the Technology Pioneers Programme site,

The Technology Pioneers programme is the World Economic Forum’s means of identifying and integrating those companies around the world that are involved in the design and development of new technologies.  Each innovation, whether it has large or small consequences, is another step in society’s attempt to harness, adapt and utilise technology to change and improve the way business and society operate.

We really respect what Qifang is trying to achieve: Giving everyone a way to pay for their education. Thanks to tens of video-sharing sites, social networks, online games etc, these services are building China web one of the most active markets of the world.  However, is it too much entertainment out of Chinese Internet? We have to reflect that what else the web 2.0 should bring to us. It is great to see loads of User Generated Content on the web, but as WEF says, technology is to improve the society operate, i.e. bring the value back to the society.

Operating a P2P lending community like Qifang in China sounds not an easy job. But if you know the Chinese education is a huge market and still there are millions of children in China can not afford to going to school,  bless and believe in Qifang.