Prof. Xiong from SME invited to be the founding scholars of Luohan Academy, Alibaba

Professor Xiong Wei, left four

Professor Xiong Wei, Academic Dean of the School of Management and Economics ("SME") of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Dean of the Shenzhen Finance Institute, was invited to be one of the first 15 scholars of Alibaba's Luohan Academy. Following the DAMO Academy, Alibaba proposed the establishment of the Luohan Academy. On June 26th, the Luohan Academy was formally established in Hangzhou. It was supported by top scholars in the fields of global sociology, economics and psychology including six Nobel Prize winners. They will work together on topics such as changes in socio-economic patterns associated with technological innovation. Professor Xiong Wei was invited to join the Academic Committee of the Luohan Academy and became one of the first 15 “super brains” in the institute. Prof. Xiong Wei is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Finance, the top academic journal of international finance, and a professor at Princeton University.

The first 15 members of Luo Han Academy's Academic Committee are composed of top international scholars, including six Nobel laureates: Bengt Holmstrom, Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Founder of Contract Theory, Lars Peter Hansen, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, Alvin E. Roth, Professor at Harvard Business School & President of the American Economic Association, Christopher A. Pissarides, Professor at the London School of Economics, Professor Michael Spence,  Member of the American Academy of Social Sciences, and Thomas Sargent, Professor at the University of New York & Leader in Rational Expectations and Inflation.

The Academic Committee issued the "Luohan Academy Mission Statement" during a two-day closed-door meeting. The Statement says that the world is entering a new era of digital economy, but just as every technological revolution has always found its right direction in quarrels and worries, our society is not ready to deal with a whole new world created with digital technologies such as big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robots. Social scientists have a responsibility to better collaborate and help human society adapt to this digital revolution.

It is reported that the Luo Han Academy will invite more interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary scholars from the world's top sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists to join in the future. The accumulated views, research reports and results will be used to serve the world. Ant Financial will support the research of the Luohan Academy.

Looking at the world, some leading research institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab are conducting similar researches. The Shenzhen Finance Institute("SFI") has also set up a research center for financial technology and social finance at the beginning of its establishment. SFI explores and builds various resource platforms around the innovative applications of big data, cloud computing, machine learning, blockchain and other financial fields to promotes the development of financial science and technology innovation in various social finance areas such as inclusive finance and social influence investment. At present, the Center for Financial Technology and Social Finance has cooperated extensively with many provinces and municipal governments in the fields of B&R international cooperation on Fin-Tech, precision poverty alleviation, digital city development planning, financial risk prevention and regulation technology. The Center also vigorously promotes big data education, exchange and cooperation, including comprehensive, multi-angle training cooperation in the improvement of big data quality (induction, collection, cleaning and processing), data resource assessment (control confirmation, model evaluation, asset reporting), data resource realization (digital asset pricing, data fusion, data packaging), and data product development (data visualization, data analysis, data mining). In addition, through the Fin-Tech International Student Innovation Competition, the Center for Financial Technology and Social Finance strongly supports innovation teams in the fields of big data, internet finance, blockchain, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, quantification and other financial technologies, integrates industry and academic resources, and builds a high-end academic communication and education platform.

The Shenzhen Finance Institute, established by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen under the authorization of Shenzhen Municipal Government, has been committed to building itself as an internationally influential and innovative talent pool, an international high-level research platform, an international high-end academic exchange platform and a high-end think tank.