NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited (“NetDragon” or “the Company”, Hong Kong Stock Code: 777), a global leader in building internet communities, is pleased to announce that, Mr. Liu Dejian, Founder and Chairman of the Board of NetDragon was recently invited to meet with Mr. Aleksandar Vucic, President of The Republic of Serbia (“Serbia”) at the Presidential Residence. The two parties explored the collaboration possibility for NetDragon to set-up an office, a R&D Centre and the National Digital Education Platform in Serbia in order to promote innovation and education reform in Serbia and stimulate industry upgrade and economic development.
During the meeting, Mr. Liu Dejian shared NetDragon’s fruitful results achieved in digital education in recent years along with the plan to set-up an office and a R&D Centre in Serbia. With the support of its technology prowess on areas including AI and VR, NetDragon will assist Serbia in local education resources production and the research and development of educational application products including AI assistants and robots. It will also carry out trainings in teaching and game production to help young people’s career development. In addition, the two parties discussed the introduction of authorized museum branches of Nikola Tesla Museum in “digital education towns” that NetDragon is involved in and the establishment of “future education exhibition centre” in Serbia’s local universities.
Mr. Liu Dejian also shared his three wishes about the future cooperation with Serbia, “We hope Serbian students can have the opportunities to use e-books and learn with fun and efficiency, and perform experiments with ‘virtual laboratory’ in a safer and more convenient environment; we hope Serbian teachers can adopt the easy-to-use teaching tools for their classes and to teach more effectively with the help of AI assistants; we also hope youngsters in Serbia can access high-quality learning resources with the help of the training platform, in order to improve their knowledge and skills, and make learning an essential part throughout their lives, and hence, enabling them to make greater contributions for Serbia’s development.”
President Vucic commented, “Serbia considers China the sincerest friend and welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in Serbia. We attach great importance to the science innovation and development of technology and we are happy to learn from China in this field. We are happy to provide our Chinese partners with full support in terms of government subsidies and concessionary initiatives. Serbia also looks forward to working with NetDragon in this project. Serbia’s education system is undergoing a digital reform and it hopes to cooperate with Chinese enterprises to cultivate AI technical talents, in order to drive technology innovation in the country.”
NetDragon has worked with Serbia for multiple times in the past. In 2018, Beijing Normal University, the University of Novi Sad in Serbia and NetDragon established a “joint virtual laboratory for future education”. And during the Digital China Summit this year and last year, NetDragon repeatedly invited Mr. Nenad Popovic, Minister without Portfolio of Serbia in charge of Innovations and Technological Development, to participate in the Digital Maritime Silk Road Sub-forum as an honorable guest. Mr. Nenad Popovic took the chance of participation to officially hire Mr. Liu Dejian as an advisor of his department to help enhance Serbia’s technology innovation capability.
As the “bridge” and intersection between Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Near East and the Middle East, Serbia plays an important role in the countries along the “Belt and Road”. Under the “Belt and Road Initiative” initiative, China and Serbia established a comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership in 2016, and the economic cooperation between the two countries expanded. NetDragon will use Serbia as a starting point to expand international digital education cooperation with the 17 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and export the “China Solution” for digital education.
About NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited
NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited (HKSE: 0777) is a global leader in building internet communities with a long track record of developing and scaling multiple internet and mobile platforms that impact hundreds of millions of users. These include China’s number one online gaming portal, 17173.com, and China’s most influential smartphone app store platform, 91 Wireless, which was sold to Baidu for US$1.9 billion in 2013 as the largest Internet M&A transaction in China.
Established in 1999, NetDragon is one of the most reputable and well-known online game developers in China with a history of successful game titles including Eudemons Online, Heroes Evolved and Conquer Online. In recent years, NetDragon has also started to scale its online education business on the back of management’s vision to create the largest global online learning community, and to bring the “classroom of the future” to every school around the world. For more information, please visit www.netdragon.com.
For investor enquiries, please contact:
NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited
Ms. Maggie Zhou
Senior Director of Investor Relations
Tel.: +852 2850 7266 / +86 591 8390 2825
Email: maggie@nd.com.cn
Website: ir.netdragon.com
