Tsinghua-PAA Impact Summit Opening Remarks by Mr Edmund Koh, Chairman, PAA

各位嘉宾，大家好。很高兴今天在清华大学经济管理学院，与各位相聚北京。

A warm welcome to the first Tsinghua-PAA Impact Summit, hosted here at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing.

Professor Zeng Rong, Executive Vice President of Tsinghua University;

Mr Peter Tan, Singapore Ambassador to The People's Republic of China;

distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

Ideas that improve lives have always travelled across borders.

At a time when cooperation between governments calls for greater patience, the case for keeping those ideas moving has rarely been stronger.

Philanthropy is well placed to lead that effort. Funders can build trust through practical programmes that rest on evidence and answer to the communities they serve.

This Summit puts that conviction into practice.

Over the next 3 days, leaders in philanthropy, business, government and academia, from across China and well beyond, will ask how institutions deliver change at scale and what each can learn from the others.

Five months ago, at the Philanthropy Asia Summit in Singapore, Professor Yang Bin, Vice Chancellor of the Tsinghua University Council and Dean of its Institute for Sustainable Social Value, stood on stage with our Chief Executive Officer, Mr Shaun Seow, to announce a partnership between Tsinghua and the Philanthropy Asia Alliance.

Today's convening is its first result.

And Beijing is a fitting place to begin.

Few countries have transformed at China’s pace and scale. Clean energy offers one of the clearest examples.

In 2000, Chinese companies filed about 1 in 20 of the world's clean-energy patent applications. By 2022, according to the think tank Ember, their share had risen to roughly 75%.

Since 2010, solar module prices have fallen by more than 90%, with Chinese manufacturers producing most of the world's output.

China now shapes both how these technologies are designed and what they cost.

But lower prices alone do not change lives.

A rural clinic benefits when finance covers the installation and local technicians can maintain the system. Funders can support both, and with it, build the evidence that proves whether an early experiment succeeds.

China's progress also rests on people.

Public services, community organisations, research institutions and frontline professionals carry innovations to the families who need them.

Dami & Xiaomi, a venture some of you will visit on the Impact Journey tomorrow, is a case in point. Its AI tools assess and support children with autism, reaching each child through the teachers and parents who use them. ABC Impact, an investment firm backed by Temasek Trust, supported the venture as it grew.

Patient funding can strengthen this local capability and extend it to people who remain challenging to serve. Scale has value only when quality is self-sustaining and future improvements outlast the initial grant.

Temasek Trust founded the Philanthropy Asia Alliance in 2023 to organise such support across Asia. Since then, more than 110 members and partners have mobilised over US$615 million for more than 300 projects in climate, health and inclusive development.

The Alliance acts as an impact catalyst and trusted convenor. We link funders with governments and with those who deliver programmes on the ground, and we carry lessons between countries.

Over the past year, our China network has widened, and several of the organisations behind that expansion are in this room today.

SEE Foundation and Fosun Foundation have joined the Alliance. The Corporate Philanthropy Action Network (SSVC) and the China Global Philanthropy Institute have become strategic network partners.

The Summit's theme, "Collaboration for Good: Leadership, Innovation, and Scale", runs through today's plenary and the afternoon breakouts on human capital, One Health and the energy transition. Those sessions frame the larger questions.

Our Impact Journeys then take you beyond this hall, to sites specially curated to show first-hand what China has achieved, and how.

Learning runs in both directions.

Delegates from outside China can see how teams here trial ideas and expand them.

Chinese institutions, in turn, can meet peers ready to adopt those models in new settings and report back.

Each lesson comes back home tested, and the stronger for it.

In the year ahead, PAA will draw more of its members into this wider exchange.

Ultimately, our work finds its measure in the enduring gains it brings to those with the least access to opportunity and essential services.

We hope you leave with a partnership to pursue and an assumption worth revisiting. Together, China's experience and the knowledge every delegate brings can travel far beyond this campus.

再次感谢清华大学的伙伴们，也感谢各位嘉宾的到来，祝会议圆满成功。

My thanks to our hosts at Tsinghua University, and to each of you for coming so far to be here.

I wish you 3 days of fresh insight and lasting connection.

Thank you.