20 YOUTH | Campus Wednesday, October 31, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Prize 2018 awarded in Beijing

By YANG YANG now director of the School yangyangs@ of Life Sciences at Peking chinadaily.com.cn University. The Ray Wu Memorial The Ray Wu Prize 2018 Fund was established when was recently awarded to 10 Wu died in 2008. It was PhD candidates from Chi­ supported by “private na and Singapore for excel­ donations from his stu­ lence in life­sciences dents, who had benefited research. directly and indirectly from The award was presented his tireless efforts in foster­ at Taikang Business School ing the younger generation in the Zhongguancun Life of scientists, as well as his Sciences Park in Beijing. longtime friends”, Sun says. “We hope to recognize “The mission of the fund students who are passion­ is to carry on Dr Ray Wu’s ate about scientific legacy of supporting young research, with qualities scientists and promoting such as innovation, inde­ biological sciences in Asia.” pendent thinking and dedi­ Wu was born in Beijing in cation — students with 1928. Both of his parents, great potential to become Hsien Wu and Daisy Ye Wu, next­generation leaders in were biochemists who life sciences,” says judge worked together on the Kada.com, a new NetEase online service to gather Scratch enthusiasts and popularize coding education among youth, officially launches in Beijing on Oct 10. Sun Xiaohong, who’s also first nutrition textbook in PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY Lew and Myra Ward chair China — a book that was and a member of the Okla­ still used in the 1990s. His homa Medical Research father, Hsien Wu, was a Foundation. prominent protein scien­ “Published papers are tist and a founding father not necessarily the most of the biochemistry disci­ important standard,” she pline in China. adds. Hsien Wu was one of the Preparing for the future Since 2009, 102 winners first Chinese students to have received the prize. study in the US in the early They are granted $3,000, a 20th century. He graduated medal, a certificate and a from MIT and was further A new online service is launched as Chinese students show a growing citation by the Ray Wu trained at Harvard Univer­ Memorial Fund. The fund sity under , with interest in computer coding, Xu Fan reports. helps winners to not only whom he co­developed the develop their scientific Folin­Wu method to assay careers but also offers spiri­ blood sugar, the first of its uan Quance, a has developed a program to tual support throughout kind in the world. After student of the automatically reply to their research journeys, returning to China, he Emerald City instant messages on WeChat which can be difficult. became head of the bio­ Branch of Beijing to avoid wasting time, and Hu Jiazhi, one of the win­ chemistry department at Primary Y School, began to has created a pet­photo­shar­ ners in 2012, is now a Peking Union Medical Col­ learn programming by using ing app as a tribute to his pet researcher with the School lege in 1924. Scratch — a coding tool devel­ of 13 years, a golden retriever of Life Sciences at Peking Ray Wu went to Yenching oped by the that died in 2016. University. University for two years. Institute of Technology — Some of the young pro­ “We are a family. The The family moved to the US more than four months ago. grammers are also socially interviewers for the prize in 1947. Like his father, Ray The 9­year­old has since responsible. have become our mentors. Wu also chose life sciences created around 20 coding Gao Lin, an 11­year­old stu­ Every new Ray Wu Prize as his profession and works on kada.com, a new dent from Kunming, capital winner is a new hope. We obtained a PhD in bio­ NetEase online service that of Yunnan province, recalls help and inspire each other, chemistry from the Univer­ aims to gather Scratch being inspired to create an moving forward together,” sity of Pennsylvania in enthusiasts and popularize app while reading news Hu says. 1955. He joined Cornell coding education among about child trafficking. He Wu was an outstanding University in 1966 as an youth. designed a gaming app titled Chinese scholar in life sci­ associate professor of bio­ As one of the largest of its Battle against Child Traffick­ ences. He developed the chemistry and molecular kind in China, Kada already ers. first method to sequence — biology. has 2 million registered Coding has also hooked and some of the fundamen­ He won the Frank users. It provides free coding parents who believe the tal tools to clone — DNA in Annunzio Award — which curricula to around 5,000 future will be dominated by 1970. recognizes innovative schools, and has launched a computers. “Subsequently, he devel­ research by Americans, project to train 10,000 teach­ Jiang Haiyang, a father in oped many methods used who devote their careers to ers in innovative program­ Hangzhou, recently paid in molecular cloning and improving the lives of ming. 13,000 yuan ($1,874) for a recombinant DNA,” says humankind through their Ding Lei, founder and CEO 150­hour coding­instruction Sun. work in science and tech­ of NetEase, says he hopes project for his 9­year­old son. “In the mid­1990s, Wu nology — in 2002. He also Chinese children can enjoy “The future will be an era and his group genetically received the Outstanding coding, just as he did in his of artificial intelligence. I engineered and successful­ Faculty and Staff Award adolescence. hope he won’t lag behind. ly field­tested pest­resist­ from the College of Agricul­ Ding is one of the leading Besides, coding can enhance ant rice plants, marking the ture and Life Sciences in figures who have reshaped concentration and transfer first time that useful genes 2005. China’s internet industry. his interest in computer could be successfully trans­ Ray Wu’s son, Albert, says The 47­year­old had wished games to something more ferred from a dicotyledon­ his father was a humble, to write a computer program serious,” Jiang says. ous potato plant to a self­disciplined and dili­ after reading Tsinghua Uni­ Data from the China Inter­ monocotyledonous rice gent scientist, who was versity professor Tan Haoqi­ net Network Information plant,” she explains. keen to make plans. He ang’s influential book BASIC Center show that the country Wu also dedicated his life kept diaries, highlighting Language when he was a has 802 million netizens, to fostering young biolo­ key words and reviewing freshman in high school. which is nearly 60 percent of gists. them from time to time, to “Once I had a computer, I the country’s total popula­ There were few opportu­ help him to think about, used it to program a ‘rock­ tion. nities for Chinese to study and better realize, those scissors­cloth’ game (the Chi­ But coding education for abroad in the 1980s, in the plans. nese version of rock–paper– pre­college students has early stages of the reform On a diary page, Ray Wu scissors),” Ding says in a remained a lesser­known and opening­up. had listed nine reasons why video statement during the industry in China. But it has Wu initiated the China­ he deeply appreciated and Beijing event where Kada a huge market potential. Biology and felt grateful about his life, was officially launched on A report by iyiou.com, an Biochemistry Examina­ including “good health”, “a Oct 10. Top and below: Yuan Quance, a third­grade pupil in Beijing, has created around 20 pieces of coding online service specializing in tions and Applications Pro­ wonderful family” and “a During the past year of works on kada.com. Above left and right: A robotic elephant (left) and monkey that can be emerging industries, finds gram. Over eight years, good job”. testing, Kada’s 13­episode manipulated to move by computer­coding orders are shown at the Beijing event. that less than 1 percent of more than 400 biology stu­ His parents’ values exert­ free coding curriculum has PHOTOS BY XU FAN / CHINA DAILY AND PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY China’s children and teenag­ dents from China arrived in ed great influence on Ray been watched more than ers have studied coding, the US to pursue PhDs Wu, including the impor­ 100,000 times and has while the figure is 44.8 per­ through the CUSBEA Pro­ tance of education. caught the attention of “head of NASA” in his fantas­ ents’ generation, when com­ cent in the United States and gram, including Sun Xiao­ “He was also very optimis­ around 7,000 teachers, tic tale. puters were heavy and 9.3 percent in the United hong and Wu Hong, who’s tic,” Albert Wu says. according to Kada’s official By spending around four programming language con­ Kingdom. statistics. hours to polish the work, sisted of strings of black­and­ But it’s never too early to Aside from watching the Yuan seems to demonstrate white codes, Shen says using learn coding. videos illustrating how to his mother’s idea that learn­ the programming language US tech company Hacker­ program using Scratch, Yuan ing coding not only improves of Scratch is like playing with Rank says in its 2018 Devel­ also joined dozens of stu­ logical thinking but also ben­ toy bricks. oper Skills Report that one in dents in a WeChat group that efits imagination. “It feels so cool,” says Shen, four developers wrote their regularly assigns homework. “I like coding. It is a lot of referring to Scratch, in which first piece of code before they One of his favorite digital fun,” says Yuan. users drag and line up col­ were 16 years old, based on a works is titled An Adventure Although Yuan has only a ored blocks in sequences to survey of roughly 39,000 in Space. few classmates who share the create animations. developers. A blend of computer game same hobby, he is not lonely Leo Li, a 16­year­old stu­ “For youngsters, coding is and short animated flick, the in the digital world. dent at Shanghai American not training for their future work set against a brightly Shen Tao, a sixth­grade School who recently received career but a kind of creation colored backdrop centers on student from Shanghai Apple’s 2018 Worldwide that can expand their knowl­ a spaceman, who pilots a red Fudan Science Park Primary Developers Conference edge of art and imagination,” vehicle to Saturn. When the School, has been fascinated scholarship, says coding has says Weng Kai, a computer sci­ little astronaut wraps up his by coding since he attended a become a part of his life. ence professor at Zhejiang task on the remote planet computer class in the third After assembling his first University. Sun Xiaohong (left), judging panelist of the Ray Wu Prize and returns to Earth, he is grade. computer in the fifth grade, 2018, and Chen Dongsheng (right), founder, chairman and CEO awarded by a yellow duck Unlike the procedure to Li has demonstrated a talent Contact the writer at of Taikang Insurance Group, present the Ray Wu Prize to Cao that Yuan designed as the study coding during his par­ in this field. For instance, he [email protected] Xing. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY