Hasso Plattner

In 2013, Hasso Plattner, the German co-founder of $200 billion software giant SAP,  signed the Giving Pledge, and in the years since, his foundation has poured around €1 billion ($1.17 billion) into health, education, science, conservation, and art. 

But last year, the Hasso Plattner Foundation made a big move to boost Europe’s standing in research and education around artificial intelligence, with a “major donation” to the University of Potsdam for a new campus and expansion of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering, which the billionaire founded in 1998. “We need a university that can compete with the best in the world—in research, in teaching, and in the speed with which it attracts the best talent. That is precisely what we are driving forward,” Plattner said in the announcement.

Launched in 2015, the foundation doesn’t disclose the size of its assets, but is endowed with a “double-digit billion euro” gift from its founder. In 2003, Plattner donated €6 million to a youth health and education program in South Africa, and two years later he and his wife Sabine Plattner hosted a concert in the country to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, donating ticket revenues to the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Sabine Plattner African Charities, established in 2008 and now part of the Hasso Plattner Foundation, supports rainforest and wilderness conservation.