Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Honors Two Outstanding Scholars for Their Contributions to Education Reform at Yidan Prize Award Presentation Ceremony

HONG KONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - 10 December 2018 - The world's leading educational award, Yidan Prize, announced earlier this year that the 2018 Yidan Prize for Education Research and Yidan Prize for Education Development would be awarded to American professor Larry HEDGES and Indian professor Anant Agarwalrespectively. Today, the two laureates traveled to Hong Kong, and under the witness of 350 guests, received the awards from Mrs Carrie LAM CHENG Yuet-ngor, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The two laureates each received a gold medal and an award of HK$30 million (approximate US$3.87 million) in recognition and support of their contributions to education reform.

Prof Larry V. HEDGES, the Yidan Prize for Education Research Laureate, Mrs Carrie Lam, GBM, GBS, the Chief Executive of HKSAR government, Dr Charles CHEN Yidan, Founder of the Yidan Prize and Prof AnantAGARWAL, thethe Yidan Prize forEducation DevelopmentLaureate , attended the Yidan Prize Award Presentation Ceremony 2018.

Mrs Lam noted in her remarks that, "Yidan Prize is connecting a world of educational innovators, researchers and policymakers.  My congratulations to Professor Hedges and Professor Agarwal, this year's Yidan Prize Laureates.  The fact that they were chosen from among nearly 1000 nominations spanning more than 90 countries is remarkable testament to their sterling achievement as well as the global reach and reputation of the Yidan Prize."

The Yidan Prize for Education Development Laureate, Professor Agarwal, is the founder and CEO of edX. He originally taught electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and in fall 2012, he received US$30 million each from Harvard University and MIT and established edX, a large-scale and not-for-profit online learning platform to "accelerate your future."

Professor Agarwal is committed to providing free quality education to anyone, irrespective of their educational background in anywhere. Over 130 world-class institutes of higher education have participated in edX, including Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; Peking University and Tsinghua University in China; and The University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong.

Since its founding, edX has already provided over 2,000 higher education courses from many world's leading institutions to more than 18 million people around the world, and the number of offerings continued to expand.

edX strives to make successful connections between education and employment. Students who have completed their courses can obtain a certificate from edX, and many of these certificate holders have gained interview opportunities from multinational companies. Also, many corporate have leveraged the edX platform to enhance the skills of their employees. All in all, edX has ushered education into a new chapter.

Professor Agarwal said: "We're really honored and fortunate to have won the Yidan Prize. We want to use the prize money to launch radical new efforts that would enable much younger learners, both at the late high school and college level, to get radically increased access and quality for their learning. edX today has 18 million students from every single country in the world, and I would love to see in the fullness of time, billions of students routinely accessing a quality education like this and education being affordable for everybody everywhere with a will to learn." 

Professor Hedges, the Yidan Prize for Education Research Laureate, is the chair of the Department of Statistics at Northwestern University in Chicago. He is renowned for his development of the statistical methods for meta-analysis (SMMS), which can be applied in social science, medical science, and biological science. The SMMS is an innovative method to integrate transdisciplinary research results, and it allows policymakers, educators, and the general public to see the evidence for "what works" in the field of education, and makes it possible to take a scientific approach to improving education for future generations.

Professor Hedges said: "I am honored to be the Yidan Prize laureate and I'm going to use whatever I gain from this prize to try and increase the profile of evidence in education for the purposes of improving education. It's important that we avoid any mistakes that can be used to discredit education, to discredit evidence in education science, because there are people who would prefer to make policy decisions on the basis of preferences and superstitions and prejudices rather than on the basis of evidence."

Dr Charles CHEN Yidan, the founder of Yidan Prize, offered his heartfelt congratulations to the two laureates. "I want to congratulate both laureates for being recognized by the independent judging committee, and for being awarded the Yidan Prize. Your theory and projects have transformed many thousands of lives. I'm grateful for your dedication to education and your contributions to society through education. In the future, I look forward to seeing more innovations in all aspects of education systems with wider participation from various stakeholders."

The Yidan Prize -- world's largest award in education -- has entered its second year, and it saw around 1,000 nominations from over 92 countries. The independent Judging Committee, led by former UNESCO Director-General Dr Koichiro MATSUURA, had spent half a year to review and select the laureates. Mr Andreas SCHLEICHER, Director for the Directorate of Education and Skills at OECD, is the head of the Yidan Prize for Education Research Judging Panel, whereas the Yidan Prize for Education Development Judging Panel is headed by Ms Dorothy K. GORDON, the Chair of UNESCO's Information for All Programme.

Comparing with the inaugural year, this year saw a 70 percent increase in the number of nominations, and they came from 151 countries and regions. These numbers are a solid testimonial to Yidan Prize's worldwide recognition.

The Yidan Prize Summit will be held on 10 December 2018. Apart from the two laureates, the speaker list includes many heavyweight international leaders, including HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands, the opening keynote speaker; United Nations Special Envoy on Global Education and former British Prime Minister Rt Hon Gordon BROWN, the closing keynote speaker; Mrs Graça MACHEL, the wife of former South African PresidentNelson MANDELA; Minister Naledi PANDOR, the South African Minister of Higher Education; Ms Yaneth GIHA, Former Minister of Education, Colombia; Mr Ronnie C. Chan, Co-Chair of Asia Society; Mr Ruben VARDANYAN, a Russian philanthropist; and Mr Terry VIRTS, a former NASA astronaut. They will be joined by 350 academics, researchers, policymakers, business leaders, philanthropists, and leading educators. Details can be found atsummit.yidanprize.org.

We now accept nominations for the third Yidan Prize, and the deadline is March 2019.

About Yidan Prize

Established in 2016 by Dr Charles CHEN Yidan, a co-founder of Tencent, Yidan Prize has a mission to create a better world through education. Yidan Prize consists of two awards: Yidan Prize for Education Research and Yidan Prize for Education Development. Yidan Prize Laureate receives a gold medal and a total sum of HK$30 million (around US$3.9 million). Half of this amount is in the form of a cash prize to the laureate, while the other half is a project fund. To ensure transparency and sustainability, the prize is managed by Yidan Prize Foundation and governed by an independent trust with an endowment of HK$2.5 billion (around US$323 million). Through a series of initiatives, the prize serves to establish a platform that allows the global community to engage in conversation around education and to play a role in education philanthropy.