Tencent Founder Charles Chen’s Yidan Prize Foundation Forms Luminaries Group

The Yidan Prize Foundation, a global philanthropic educational foundation set up by Tencent founder Charles Chen, has formed a 16-member “Council of Luminaries” to boost its promotion of education policies and reform.  

The foundation announced the move during this year’s Yidan Prize Awards Presentation Ceremony and Summit held virtually in Hong Kong today. Summit speakers emphasized the need for greater global embrace of new technology to enhance both teaching and learning.

“There are clear opportunities to do things differently and better,” said Professor Carl Wieman, a professor of physics graduate school of education at Stanford University, who won this year’s Yidan Prize for Education Research and is one of the luminaries. Other prize winners this year attending the summit were Lucy Lake, CEO of the Campaign for Female Education,  and Angeline Murimirwa, executive director or CAMFED.

The need for focus on education is urgent. Some 1.6 billion students’ education have been interrupted due to COVID-19, according to an United Nations estimate.  School closures have affected 90% of the world’s students, according to Yidan. AT a time when online learning is the only option for many, half of the world’s children cannot access the internet, it said.

The Council of Luminaries brings together researchers, educators, neuroscientists, psychologists, economists, statisticians and innovators. Members include Anant Agarwal, an engineering professor at MIT, Kamal Ahmad, founder of the Asian University for Women, Carol Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, and Larry Hedges, Chairman, Department of Statistics, Northwestern University. Click here for the full list.

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—with Ellen Wang