Mody offered to contribute a great sum of money, $150,000, to help establish the University of Hong Kong, provided it was matched with donations from other sources.

[7] At the foundation ceremony on 16 March 1910, Mody summed up his reasons for contributing towards HKU: As a young man, the advantages of education were unfortunately not within my reach, and I have today at my advanced age to confess myself 'no scholar'.

[6][8]Hong Kong Telegraph 17 March 1910 rightly summed up this event taking a queue from the speech of Viceroy of Canton during the ceremony: "They Built Better Than They Knew".

Sir Hormusjee Mody’s son Naoroz Hormusjee Naoroji Mody attended the opening ceremony and said: Your Excellency [Lord Lugard], it is with feelings of the utmost pleasure and pride that I proceed to perform the duty which devolves upon me of formally in the name of my late father, presenting this University building, to the community, and requesting that you, Sir, may be pleased to declare the same open, and, on behalf of my mother, I also desire to express her regret that, through ill health, she is unable to be present this day...

I may further state that I have given instructions for the making of a silver model of the Main Building of the University which, when complete, I would ask your Excellency to accept as a souvenir of this opening ceremony, which is, I think a memorable one in the annals of the Colony.

[1] A bronze bust of Sir Hormusjee N. Mody was presented by the Incorporated Trustees of the Zoroastrian Charity Funds of Hong Kong, Canton and Macao to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the University.