(The award ceremony of the Future Science Prize)

Chinese entrepreneurs who sponsored the Future Science Prize, China’s first-ever non-governmental science award, told Thepaper.cn on Sept. 9 after the prize announced its winners for 2017 that they all stick to doing this voluntarily.

Each winner of the Future Life Science, Physical Science, and the Mathematics and Computer Science prizes, the Chinese-version Nobel Prize, are awarded $1 million for their individual scientific discoveries made in China, and the prizes are not exclusive to Chinese nationals.

The prizes are donated by 12 entrepreneurs from China’s listed companies, including Pony Ma, founder and CEO of Tencent, William Ding, CEO of NetEase, and Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu, who all promised to sponsor the prize for 10 years.

The entrepreneurs noted that the prize is an encouragement to scientists’ hard work and scientific innovation, and will encourage more people to attach importance to science so that China’s scientific strength can be increased.

In addition, the entrepreneurs stated they care more about sustainability and internationalization of the prize, in the hope to build it into China’s Nobel Prize.

“I want not only Chinese scientists to seek the Future Science Prize, but people all around the world, including children involved in science, who could regard it as a lifelong pursuit,” said William Ding.