Yesterday Her Majesty departed on a working visit to China, to attend the XIN Philanthropy Conference hosted by the Alibaba Group headquartered in Hangzhou on Wednesday where she will deliver the keynote speech.

Before the conference Her Majesty Queen Rania toured the Alibaba Group headquarters earlier today, where she met with Jack Ma and Alibaba executives.

During the interactive tour of the Alibaba Xixi campus, Jack Ma introduced Her Majesty to Alibaba’s world i.e history and philosophy, advanced technologies, and philanthropic work. After the tour, she and Jack Ma joined the executives for a brief on the company’s main initiatives.

The meeting also included a presentation on the Jack Ma Foundation’s (JMF) education-related initiatives, and Alibaba Group’s cloud training and upskilling initiatives implemented in China.

Queen Rania’s visit to Hangzhou comes shortly after a recent visit by Jack Ma to Jordan last May, where his foundation pledged a three million USD grant to support the mission of the Queen Rania Foundation (QRF) and its work in education in Jordan. 

The grant will focus on two of QRF’s initiatives, including Edraak, the free online platform for Arabic open education resources (OERs), and the Queen Rania Teacher Academy (QRTA).

The XIN Philanthropy Conference convening in Hangzhou for the second time brings together 600 participants from Chinese and international philanthropy and charity organizations, as well as VIPs in the fields of science and technology, education, environmental protection, sport, entertainment, and media. The first conference, held in Hangzhou in 2016, was attended by UN Secretary at the time, Ban Ki Moon and former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.