The Yidan Prize Foundation, a global philanthropic organization, has announced its 2025 Yidan Prize laureates. Mamadou Amadou Ly and Professor Uri Wilensky are awarded the world’s highest accolade in education for their contributions in fostering computational thinking skills and breaking down barriers to foundational education, respectively.
Prof Wilensky and Mamadou will join the Yidan Prize Council of Laureates, a community of bright minds across research and practice seeking to collaborate, share opportunities and explore pathways to create a better world through education.
Spotlighting changemakers to create a better world through education
The independent Yidan Prize Judging Committee selected the two laureates among outstanding researchers and practitioners around the world. The Committee highlights the importance of recognizing innovative and scalable ideas in a time of disinvestment in education. The 2025 Yidan Prize laureates are making significant contributions in advancing foundational and scientific literacy, supporting students to participate fully in the classroom and engage in society as global citizens.
“Education unlocks potential. It equips individuals and societies with the skills to continuously learn, navigate uncertainty, and thrive in a changing world. At a crossroads in global development, we stand strong in our commitment to education. The Yidan Prize is dedicated to serving as a lighthouse to illuminate possibilities and shape a brighter future through education,” said Dr Charles Chen Yidan, Founder of the Yidan Prize.
The Yidan Prize recognizes changemakers in education research and education development whose work is future-oriented, innovative, transformative and sustainable. Professor Uri Wilensky and Mamadou Amadou Ly will each receive HK$30 million (approximately US$3.8 million), half of which is a project fund of HK$15 million to expand and scale their education initiatives. To date, the Yidan Prize Foundation has awarded a total of HK$540 million (approximately US$69.2 million) to recognize outstanding achievements and scale innovative work in over 50 countries.
Mamadou Amadou Ly: Advancing Foundational Literacy and Multilingualism
The 2025 Yidan Prize in Education Development Laureate, Mamadou Amadou Ly, is the Executive Director of Associates in Research and Education for Development (ARED). In Senegal, where over 70% of fourth graders cannot speak or understand French, Mamadou has pioneered bilingual education models that transform literacy and numeracy outcomes.
By teaching in languages children know alongside the official language, Mamadou has demonstrated a scalable pathway for multilingual education across West and Central Africa. His openly licensed teaching and learning resources, available through the Early Learning Resource Network, have influenced policy and practice in Senegal, Mauritania and The Gambia, with ripple effects beyond.
“ARED is reshaping classroom culture,” the Foundation notes, “shifting from traditional ‘chalk and talk’ methods to more flexible, engaging, inclusive environments.”
Dorothy Gordon, Head of the Yidan Prize Education Development Judging Panel, affirmed: “Mamadou Amadou Ly’s visionary work in multilingual education provides methods that open the door to literacy and opportunity for learners globally while safeguarding linguistic and cultural identities. This path to inclusive and equitable learning environments inspires education reform in Africa and beyond.”
In celebrating the win, Mamadou noted:
“I am deeply honored to have received the 2025 Yidan Prize for Education Development, the most prestigious award in the world in this field. This recognition is not mine alone; it celebrates the tireless work of the entire ARED team and our partnership with the Ministry of National Education, Senegal, and Africa for more than 30 years.”
Uri Wilensky: Understanding Complexity Through Hands-On Exploration
The 2025 Yidan Prize in Education Research Laureate, Professor Uri Wilensky, is the Lorraine H. Morton Professor of Learning Sciences, Computer Science and Complex Systems at Northwestern University. He is recognized for his groundbreaking work in agent-based modeling (ABM), which promotes complex systems literacy and bridges disciplinary knowledge.
Prof Wilensky has developed a free, open-source tool, NetLogo, that enables students and researchers alike to explore how small, individual actions accumulate into large-scale outcomes. From modeling forest fire tipping points to simulating pandemics or economic shifts, NetLogo has become a universal language for approaching complexity across scientific and social domains.
As Prof Wilensky notes, “Using NetLogo, learners create models like those forests and play with individual behaviors to explore how small actions become large-scale, non-linear patterns.”
By embedding ABM into curricula globally, he is democratizing access to advanced tools and fostering a new generation of collaborative, interdisciplinary thinkers ready to navigate today’s AI-enabled world.
Andreas Schleicher, Head of the Yidan Prize Education Research Judging Panel, emphasized: “Professor Uri Wilensky explores how computational representations can recast knowledge across scientific and social domains. By equipping students with tools to understand nonlinear, complex systems, he fosters their confidence and agency to navigate today’s interconnected world.”
A Shared Mission, A Global Community
Though working in different contexts, Prof Wilensky and Mamadou share an ethos: equity, accessibility and scale. Their work demonstrates how education whether through computational modeling or bilingual instruction can equip students not only to learn, but to thrive as global citizens.
As Dr Koichiro Matsuura, Chairman of the Judging Committee, remarked: “The Yidan Prize is creating a better world through education. It is thanks to the vision of Dr Charles Chen Yidan that each year we champion changemakers whose work is transforming research and practice… In a time of disinvestment in education, Uri and Mamadou’s work shows us the importance of novel ideas with the potential to scale, so more students can participate fully in learning and engage in society as global citizens.”
The laureates will be formally celebrated at the 2025 Yidan Prize Awards Ceremony on 6 December in Hong Kong, alongside the annual Yidan Prize Summit on 5–6 December. Nominations for the 2026 prize open in October 2025.
By joining the Yidan Prize community of laureates, Mamadou and Prof Wilensky add their voices to a growing movement of innovators committed to reshaping education for an uncertain, interconnected world.
As Dr Matsuura concluded: “By bringing together the people who show how change can be done and amplifying their voices, we become a lighthouse for all, illuminating the possibilities for our shared future.”
