Dr Charles Chen Yidan established the Yidan Prize Foundation in 2016 with a mission to create a better world through education. Charles is recognized as the Father of Internet Philanthropy. In 1998, he co-founded Tencent and was its Chief Administrative Officer.

In 2007, led by Charles, Tencent launched the Tencent Charity Foundation, the very first charity foundation in China’s Internet industry. After leaving office in 2013, he served as the Lifetime Honorary Consultant of Tencent and the Honorary Chairman of Tencent Charity Foundation. Apart from his charity work with the Tencent network, Charles undertakes other education philanthropy. He has dedicated himself to setting up Wuhan College, a pioneer of non-profit private universities in China. He was the top philanthropist in 2017 Forbes China Philanthropist list.

In 2018, Charles donated his Tencent shares to set up a charitable trust, focusing on furthering the development of education. Charles obtained a bachelor’s degree in Applied Chemistry from Shenzhen University in 1993, a master’s degree in Economic Law from Nanjing University in 1996 and a doctor of business administration degree from the Singapore Management University in 2019. He served as a visiting scholar of Stanford Law School in 2014 and was conferred the degree of Doctor of Humanities (honoris causa) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2017.