Forbes Indonesia — August 2017

AUGUST 2017 FORBES INDONESIA | 65

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ach year since 2008, we’ve scoured the Asia-Pacific region for our list of top

philanthropists. We look for men and women who made news with their altru-

ism over the past year, and we also seek to spotlight people who have compiled

a record of notable contributions over the years.

The members of this year’s honor roll pursued causes from launching a food bank in Sin-

gapore and training burn victims to be bakers in India to establishing a school for gifted chil-

dren in Indonesia and training government officials in leadership and good governance in the

Philippines. For the first time, philanthropists from Myanmar and Vietnam make the list.

The goal is to pick only true philanthropists—people who are giving their own money,

not their company’s (unless they own most of the company), because we don’t consider do-

nating shareholder funds as charity. And we also don’t list people who work in philanthropy

solely as foundation heads, volunteers or fundraisers. We want to focus on the people sup-

plying the financing and sketching the broad vision. If our effort in compiling this roster en-

courages more people to support worthy causes, then we’ll consider it a good deed.

Trying to

Make a Difference

The 40 noteworthy givers on this year’s list

include billionaires, celebrities and other

generous folks.

VIRGILE SIMON BERTRAND FOR FORBES

winners will be announced in September,
and each will receive $3.9 million, includ-
ing $1.9 million to pursue their projects.
Chen left Tencent in 2013 and
became a full-time philanthropist, es-
tablishing the Tencent Charity Foun-

dation and giving $300 million to up-

grade Wuhan College, a private liberal

arts college in China. He’s inspired by

how the internet has transformed hu-

man interaction worldwide. “We need

new thinking for a successful transi-

tion to the fourth industrial revolution,

an era of human-machine interdepen-

dence,” he says. “It is time for us to

rethink who we are educating, how we

are educating them and why we are

educating them the way we are.”