HIV/AIDS
Plattner has had strong connections with South Africa over the years and spends some of his time living there, while participating in charitable work. In the fight against AIDS, he supports the universities of KwaZulu Natal and Cape Town.
Plattner's donation of €6 million for the Isombululo programme for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS was announced at the Presidents Cup, one of the world's leading international golf tournaments in 2003 and it is suggested that this amount will have helped 360,000 people. In the spring of 2005, Plattner personally covered the costs of the 46664 benefit concert, which took place at his Gary Player-designed golf course, The Links of Fancourt in George which is near Cape Town and which was broadcast globally on television. Proceeds went towards the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an organisation co-founded by former South African president Nelson Mandela.[23]
Architecture and visual arts
Plattner contributed more than €20 million which enabled reconstruction of the historic exterior of the Stadtschloss in Potsdam, which had damaged during World War II and demolished in 1959. At the time, it was the largest donation ever gifted in Germany by a single individual.[24]
In 2016, Plattner joined forces with art dealer Guy Wildenstein to form the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, a foundation dedicated to advancing art historical scholarship by fostering the accessibility, cataloguing, and digitisation of primary sources.[25]
Plattner also helped in the establishment of the Museum Barberini, devoted to his holdings of modern and Impressionist art, as well as artists active in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).[26] For the museum, he purchased one of Monet’s 1890 Meules paintings for $110.7 million at a 2019 Sotheby's auction, making it the most high-priced Impressionist work ever sold at auction.[27]
Research
Since his retirement from SAP, Plattner has been particularly active as a benefactor in the field of technological research. Media reports have named him one of Germany's most important private sponsors of scientific research. In 1998, Plattner founded the Hasso Plattner Institute for software systems engineering based at the University of Potsdam, and in Palo Alto, California, its sole source of funding being the non-profit Hasso Plattner Foundation for Software Systems Engineering. Plattner has pledged €50 million of his personal fortune over a period of 20 years. Since its foundation, Plattner's commitment to the HPI has quadrupled to over €200 million. He not only fully finances the HPI, but is also actively involved as a director and lecturer in Enterprise Platforms and Integration Concepts.[30]
In October 2005, with a donation of US$35 million, Plattner founded the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University.[31] Students of varying disciplines have been charged with the development of user-friendly innovations. Another of Plattner's pledges to promote science was of €10 million to redevelop the library at the University of Mannheim, Germany, given in 2003.
