Galaxy Entertainment Group founder and Chairman Lui Chi Woo, who’s made a $15 billion fortune in the gaming industry, has endowed a special cash award in his name in the amount of a HKD20 million (US$2.56 million). That’s double the amount of a Nobel Prize, according to Bloomberg News.
Recipients are individuals or organizations from three categories: sustainability, welfare development and positive energy. The winners are chosen in a three-part process that includes a nomination committee, selection panels and the prize council. The latter consists of “five international personages,” including Lui, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a former archbishop of Canterbury and the former chief executive of Hong Kong.
This year’s winners, honored at a ceremony on October 3, were renewable energy advocate Hans-Josef Fell, formerly of Germany’s Green Party; the World Meteorological Organization; and India’s Pratham Education Foundation.
Lui’s prize “is not serving any political function,” the Hong Kong billionaire said. “If it gets involved with politics, it will become complicated.”
In addition to the cash prize, the award-winners received a trophy showing the “amiable and kind smiling face of Dr. Lui, as if sowing a seed of benevolence.”
