Values set the course
The power to change
Courage and strength are all you need
Virtus inspire – Infusing strength and breathing courage
This is the motto of Li Haixiang, better known in the international business world and among database experts as Vic Lee. He is the founder of the VI Institute.
For Vic Lee, courage and strength are the keys to success in life. These values are so important to him that he has aligned his companies and CSR initiatives with them.
Vic Lee’s career took off at Tencent, China’s largest technology company, where he reached his first major milestone.
Starting in 1999—just a year after Tencent was founded—Vic Lee played a crucial role in planning, building, and managing the company’s operational platforms. His responsibilities included technical architecture, information security, payment processing, business intelligence, sales channel integration, core IT, application maintenance, and customer service.
Later, Vic Lee led Tencent’s search engine, which ranked 42nd globally as of February 2022.
Among database specialists, Vic Lee is known not only for the practical implementation of data queries but also for his presentations at industry conferences and theoretical contributions.
He has published numerous papers, including recent works on topics such as Conceptual Modeling on Tencent’s Distributed Database Systems (2018) and Data Anomalies in Databases (2021).
Vic Lee has also demonstrated his ability to inspire through various technological research projects. He holds patents for several developments in data processing, including innovations in data storage and retrieval. One of his most notable patents is in the field of Mine Vision, a technology that enables machines to interpret and recognize images.
Making complex technologies user-friendly
Strength through education
Inspiring strength—this is also true for Vic Lee in his educational initiatives. His own education spans from the South China University of Technology to renowned management institutions like Harvard and Wharton.
In Hong Kong, Vic Lee funds tech education initiatives in schools, including international partnership programs. For example, he has launched projects with schools aimed at helping students recognize the intrinsic value of education and understand the importance of innovation for the prosperity of a country. The goal is to encourage young people who have not previously been interested in technology to pursue technical fields of study. Highlights for students include excursions to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
