Baoli Ma

In 2000, Ma, then a closeted policeman known online only by the alias “Geng Le”, founded one of China’s first and most influential LGBTQ online forums, Danlan, the predecessor of BlueCity.

After resigning as a policeman in 2011, he was determined to fully devote himself to social awareness activities for the LGBTQ community. BlueCity was officially founded in the same year with the launch of its mobile app Blued the year after, in 2012, which now connects about 54 million people worldwide with nearly half of them outside China.

Ma’s achievements have been widely recognized by numerous awards. He was awarded the Boldness in Business Awards from Financial Times in 2016 and selected as one of the “Global Thinkers” by the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy in 2017.