The 7th Asia Pacific Charity Bike Ride took place from October 7 to 9 in the Blue Mountains in Sydney, Australia. Funds raised from this year’s Bike Ride will go to support a number of initiatives, including the Indigenous Literacy Foundation in Australia to raise literacy levels of Aboriginals and the Torres Strait children living in remote Australia. Other beneficiaries include Adream Charitable Foundation (China); Hans Andersen Club and Hong Kong Rugby Union Community Foundation (Hong Kong); Indian Rugby Football Union, Akanksha Foundation and Sahasra Deepika (India); Nadia NPO (Japan); Buk Bu (Korea); Beyond Social Services and Passerrelles Numeriques (Singapore); Taiwan Fund for Children & Families (Taiwan). Bloomberg is the official media partner of this year’s event.

Societe Generale’s annual charity bike ride is the firm’s major Citizen Commitment initiative, the event has enjoyed success in China, Cambodia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Mongolia in the past years, raising over EUR 500,000 for a variety of charity partners throughout the region.

Hikaru Ogata, CEO Asia Pacific at Societe Generale, said, “We are delighted to see such strong support from our colleagues across the Asia Pacific region. This year, the bike ride was even more physically challenging as the Blue Mountains is a rugged region with steep cliffs, forest and waterfalls. With team spirit, we supported one another to get to the finish line. The annual charity bike ride has proven to be one of our most anticipated regional events to pull together our colleagues’ collective efforts to make a real difference in the communities in which we operate.”

This charity bike ride is part of Societe Generale’s global community engagement efforts to support philanthropic,humanitarian and local community causes. Societe Generale’s social and charitable activities fall into three categories: Citizen Commitment, in which it partners with charitable organizations; Cultural Patronage,which focuses on support for classical music and contemporary art; and Sports Sponsorship, which contributes to the development and practice of rugby, golf and disabled sports.