$130 Million gift from Li Ka Shing Foundation to the Israeli Technion

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The gift is the largest ever to the Technion and one of the most generous in the history of Israeli higher education

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 Li Ka Shing

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The Israeli Technion Institute of  Technology and Shantou University in China will establish a joint academic technological institute in China under the name: Technion Institute-Guangdong Technology (TGIT), with a donation of $130 million from the US based Li Ka Shing Foundation .

The Technion Guangdong Institute of Technology (TGIT) – sponsored by the Li Ka Shing Foundation (LKSF) with a US$130 million grant – will represent unprecedented cooperation between the People’s Government of Guangdong Province and Shantou Municipal Government, Technion, and STU. Guangdong Province and Shantou Municipal Government will set aside RMB900 million (approximately US$147 million) to fund construction and initial operations, as well as 330, 000 square metres for the campus to be located next to STU.

The US$130 million grant from LKSF is the largest ever to the Technion and one of the most generous in the history of Israeli higher education. It will be allocated for strengthening the Technion’s home campus in Haifa, for the benefit of its students and researchers, to enable the Technion to fulfil its leading role in TGIT.

Mr Li Ka-shing, Chairman of the LKSF, Will speak at today’s ceremony in Tel Aviv to formalise the memorandum of understanding for the establishment of TGIT. The agreement will be signed by Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie and STU Provost Professor Gu Peihua, and will soon be brought for the approval of the Technion’s and Chinese statutory authorities.

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 Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie

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TGIT will begin offering undergraduate programmes in civil and environmental engineering and computer sciences in the 2014 academic year. The establishment of an innovation centre, connecting industries in Guangdong with Israel’s technological creativity, will bridge Israeli technology into China and promote joint research and innovation. The language of instruction at the TGIT will be in English and its faculty will be recruited from international researchers and scientists in universities around the world.

Beginning in 2014, TGIT will join STU to conduct life sciences research based on Big Data to tackle the pressing social and livelihood issues like inadequate healthcare system and services, as well as improvements of clinical diagnosis procedures.

By 2020, the institute will offer courses in other engineering-related fields, from mechanical to aerospace engineering.

The partnership between Israel and LKSF began in 2011, with a visit from LKSF executives to Technion and a reciprocal visit of the Technion President Prof Lavie to the LKSF headquarters in Hong Kong. That visit to Israel also resulted in an investment from Mr Li’s private venture capital company Horizons in Waze – a revolutionary GPS navigation technology. The profits from the recent sale of Waze to Google became part of the donation to Technion.

During the campus construction phase, the inaugural group of TGIT students will spend the first two years of studies at Technion in Israel, and will all come back to Shantou in their third year, in order to cultivate the culture of innovation locally.

Founded in 1912, Technion has earned a global reputation for its pioneering work in nanotechnology, life sciences, stem cells, water management, sustainable energy, information technology, biotechnology, materials engineering, aerospace and industrial engineering. It is one of the top 100 universities worldwide, based on the prestigious Shanghai ranking, and one of the only 10 universities in the world that have built and launched satellites. Three Technion professors have won Nobel Prizes in the past nine years. A year ago, together with Cornell University, the Technion won an international competition to establish a research institute in the heart of New York.

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