The Chen Couple and the Geopolitical Philanthropy of the 21st Century
On Tuesday, December 5, 2017, under a tent protecting from the Californian sun in Pasadena California, a small stage brings together a most unusual Who’s Who: alongside the city’s mayor, Terry Torneck, and the president of the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Thomas Rosenbaum, neuroscientist Richard Andersen and biologist Stephen Mayo are joined by a young billionaire couple of Chinese origin, Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen.
These entrepreneurs, then living in Singapore, made their fortune by developing Shanda Interactive Entertainment, China’s largest online gaming company. On this day, shovels in hand, they inaugurate the construction of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience, dedicated to fundamental research.
‘Caltech is not the first university we have spoken with, but it is the first with which we are collaborating,’ the billionaire explains before a hundred assembled researchers. Richard Andersen adds: ‘Understanding the workings and dysfunctions of the brain is one of humanity’s great challenges. [The Chen family’s contribution] gives us the resources and space to have a global impact.’ And how! In December 2016, the couple committed to donating $115 million (99.2 million euros) to the university. Richard Andersen recalls the surprise email he received in the summer of 2015 ‘following a television program about [his] research that the Chens had watched in Singapore.’ They met at Caltech and, given the amounts involved,’ he ‘quickly referred it to[his] administration.’”