Tencent announced on Feb 26 that it has invested 88 million yuan in the establishment of an “epidemic care package” to support scientific research, public health research, and medical care.
The “epidemic care package” will provide support for Covid-19 related research, care for frontline medical staff and scientific research in the field of public health. In addition, Tencent will continue to provide long-term support for the research on Covid-19 in the scientific research field, the improvement of future medical facilities, and the establishment of public health awareness.
30 million yuan in the “epidemic care package” will be provided to care for frontline medical staff. On February 26, the Tencent Charity Foundation and the Chinese Academy of Engineering signed the Cooperation Agreement on Medical Care and Career Development of Frontline Medical Staff to Fight the Epidemic.
The Chinese Academy of Engineering will be funded by the Tencent Foundation with RMB 30 million. More than 30 academicians will lead the establishment of multiple research topics based on medical field problems encountered in front-line prevention and control work, on top of the special research in screening, clinical diagnosis, and treatment.
According to the agreement, the Chinese Academy of Engineering will run a buddy system between the selected 500 outstanding frontline medical staff and researchers from the Hubei epidemic by pairing academicians from different fields such as respiratory and critical care, health management and infectious disease research, to create guidance and medical skills training. The team will also develop a professional development platform to continuously improve medical standards and capabilities.
Ma Huateng, CEO and chairman as well as founder and honorary chairman of Tencent Foundation, said that the epidemic affected the hearts of all Tencent employees. “Tencent has set up a 1.5 billion RMB “Epidemic Fund” to provide support within its ability to fight the epidemic and to provide scientific epidemic prevention through funding for scientific research, improved medical, health facilities and public health awareness in the long term.”
An additional RMB 6 million RMB in the “epidemic care package” will be allocated to provide psychological support to medical staff. Tencent Foundation will donate 3 million RMB each to the Institute of Psychology of Beijing Normal University and the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Psychological intervention for medical staff.
Tencent’s epidemic fund will also be used to assist multiple scientific research teams in related public health research. For example, Tencent will work with Zhong Nanshan’s team to set up a joint lab on big data and artificial intelligence. The scientific research cooperation between the two parties involves areas such as epidemiological screening, AI medical imaging, and epidemic forecasting and early warning.
The Tencent Epidemic Fund will also support research teams at Tsinghua University and the University of Hong Kong in vaccine development, drug screening research, clinical diagnosis and treatment research, and virus detection research. In the later stage, the number of funded scientific research teams will be further expanded.
Editor’s note: This is part of our ongoing Tech for Good series, highlighting how Chinese tech companies are helping fight the impact of the coronavirus. This was originally written by Steven Lee, a writer for our sister site, TechNode Chinese. Read the Chinese version here.