- Hong Kong hosts the Yidan Prize Summit 2025 at the Palace Museum, gathering over 500 education changemakers from 50+ countries.
- The summit highlights global education innovation, featuring Yidan Prize laureates, student leaders, and educators sharing insights on reshaping learning.
- 2025 laureates Uri Wilensky and Mamadou Amadou Ly honored, reinforcing Hong Kong’s role as a global hub for education collaboration and transformative ideas.
Hong Kong once again cemented its position as a global education hub when the Yidan Prize Foundation brought together more than 500 changemakers from over 50 countries at its annual summit, held this year at the Hong Kong Palace Museum. The two-day event, held on December 5 and 6, has grown into the world’s preeminent forum for education innovation, attracting students, educators, and leaders from NGOs committed to reshaping learning on a global scale.
The Yidan Prize, founded by philanthropist Charles Chen Yidan, remains the world’s most prestigious award in education, recognizing individuals and teams whose work has fundamentally altered the trajectory of learning worldwide. Each laureate is awarded HK$30 million, with HK$15 million dedicated to project funding and another HK$15 million as a personal cash prize.
Chen Yidan, who appeared on the cover of Tatler in 2019, opened this year’s summit with a poignant moment of silence in memory of victims of the recent Tai Po fire before calling on attendees to harness collective action. “What we can achieve together far outweighs anything we each do alone”, he said, setting the stage for an intensive dialogue under the theme “Education at a crossroads: co-creating paths forward for a brighter future”.
One of the highlights was on the summit's second day, where the Olympian-turned-educator Yvette Kong, a Tatler Gen.T honouree, partnered with Anna Yao, a student leader from HKUST Project Melo, to moderate an exchange with three Yidan Prize laureates: Rukmini Banerji, Usha Goswami, and Angeline Murimirwa.
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This was not a panel discussion but rather a spotlight on the defining moments in each laureate's journey-the doubts, the discoveries, and the determinations that forged them into the world class education innovators they are today. Kong reflected on her part: "My role was simply to be the bridge. To translate the wisdom of our laureates into something every young person and every educator in Hong Kong could hold, feel, and act on".
It underscored the human stories behind paradigm-shifting educational work: reflecting on lessons learned, going the hard way, and actionable insight. The summit concluded with the presentation of the 2025 laureates, Uri Wilensky and Mamadou Amadou Ly, who received their medals in a ceremony that underscored the summit's message: Hong Kong is not just a host for discussions about the future of education; it is an active participant in shaping it.
Through events such as the Yidan Prize Summit, the city facilitates collaboration across borders, disciplines, and generations, giving a platform to ideas that may define global learning for decades to come. By bringing together pioneering educators, researchers, and student leaders, Hong Kong continues to seal its position as a catalyst for innovation, showing education as both a shared responsibility and a collective opportunity for meaningful, lasting impact worldwide.
