Alibaba founder Jack Ma makes appearance at rural teachers’ charity event
Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma took part in a ceremony at a primary school in Hainan on Monday, his first public appearance since returning to China in November from a European study trip.
Ma, 57, joined the annual Rural Teachers Initiative meeting at Changhao Central School, where he took part in a video call with 100 rural teachers from 24 provinces around the country, according to a post from The Jack Ma Foundation on Weibo.
The Rural Teachers Initiative was established by Ma in 2015 to support teachers working in the countryside.
Before the pandemic, Ma had invited rural teachers to Hainan for five consecutive years on the 8th day of the last month in the lunar calendar, known as the Laba Festival, to present 100 of the most outstanding with a cash grant of 100,000 yuan (HK$122,300) each to support rural education.
The event has been held online in the past two years due to Covid-19.
Ma sat in a classroom in front of a blackboard showing the date and school’s name, according to a short video clip posted online.
He said that he hoped to carry on the campaign to help rural teachers, adding “I haven’t done enough and my capabilities are limited.”
Alibaba, which owns the
South Post, did not
China Morning immediately reply to a request for comment. Phone calls to Changhao Central School were not answered.
As one of the country’s most high-profile technology entrepreneurs, Ma’s whereabouts are closely watched, especially after the companies he founded – including Alibaba and its fintech affiliate Ant Group – came under regulatory scrutiny amid Beijing’s intensified crackdown on the tech sector.
The formerly outspoken Ma has stayed out of the spotlight after securities regulators suspended the US$39 billion dual listing of Ant Group in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2020, 48 hours before its shares were due to start trading.
Ma retired as Alibaba’s executive chairman in 2019, on his 55th birthday. The former English teacher said he wanted to dedicate his post-retirement days to philanthropy, rural education and pursuing his interest in reviving the country’s rural sector.
He stayed out of public view for months after the cancelled IPO, but showed up in a video recorded for the Rural Teacher Initiative in early 2021.
Joe Tsai, Alibaba’s co-founder and chairman of SCMP Publishers, told CNBC in June that Ma was “laying low right now”, spending time on hobbies such as painting.
In October last year, Ma visited research institutions in the Netherlands and Spain to further his interest in agricultural technology, in what was his first overseas trip in more than a year, sources told the at the time.
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Ma’s foundation has provided funding and support to 100 school principals of rural schools and 700 rural teachers, according to a separate statement from the group.