On May 12, the surging reporter learned that Zhang Yiming, the founder and CEO of ByteDance, donated US $ 10 million to the project “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator” initiated by the Gates Foundation. Yu R & D of new coronary pneumonia treatment drugs.
Previously, Zhang Yiming personally donated 100 million yuan in China to support the frontline medical workers in the fight against epidemics.
Zhang Yiming is 36 years old. The byte-beating company he founded has several products such as Douyin, Toutiao, TikTok, Feishu and so on.
“Charities, government agencies and private organizations, as well as individuals like Zhang Yiming, many donors are aware of the value of cooperating in the development of effective drugs to reverse the epidemic,” Trevor Mundel, President of the Gates Foundation ’s Global Health Division, said, “Before vaccine development, expanding testing, isolation, and treatment is our best option.
Public information shows that the” New Coronary Pneumonia Treatment Accelerator “is a public welfare initiative initiated by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Foundation and Mastercard in March this year. The three partners pledged to invest 1.25 The US $ 100 million seed fund, through the identification, evaluation, development and large-scale promotion of new coronary pneumonia treatments, will help accelerate the response of the global, especially resource-poor countries and regions. The Gates Foundation and Wellcome Foundation have each committed to invest Up to US $ 50 million, MasterCard has pledged to invest up to US $ 25 million.
Except for Zhang Yiming, in late March, Facebook The founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, the charity “Chan Zuckerberg Initiative”, announced a donation of 25 million US dollars to the “Accelerator.” In early April, Dell founder Michael Dell The founding foundation announced a donation of US $ 20 million. On May 1, the famous singer Madonna donated US $ 1 million.
Previously, Zhang Yiming also personally submitted to “Byte The Beating Medical Rescue Fund donated 100 million yuan. The fund was established by the byte beating company donating 200 million yuan to the China Red Cross Foundation. Follow-up, byte beating donated 80 million yuan, plus Zhang Yiming’s personal donation 100 million yuan , ByteDance employee voluntary donations, and other social enterprises and personal donations, the final fund total reached 436 million yuan.
Surging reporters noticed that in 2019, Zhang Yiming also set up the Nankai University Innovation Fund at his alma mater Nankai University. As the initiator of the innovation fund, Zhang Yiming donated 100 million yuan to the fund.