Wilensky: ‘We Can't Look the Other Way'
Northwestern University’s Uri Wilensky shared his vision for making computational thinking more accessible during the Yidan Prize Awards Ceremony in Hong Kong, where he received the 2025 Yidan Prize for Education Research.
“Today’s problems are complex and difficult for us to conceptualize, such as climate change, global conflict and global markets,” Wilensky said during his acceptance speech. “But we can’t just sit tight and hope for the best. We can’t look the other way. We must empower ourselves to face — and even embrace — the complexity of these times. This is at the core of my work.”
The ceremony was part of the Yidan Prize Summit, an annual event that convenes more than 500 educators, youth and organizational leaders from more than 50 countries, highlighting the Yidan Foundation’s commitment to “bringing people together as a community that listens and learns from one another.”
Wilensky, the Lorraine H. Morton Professor of Learning Sciences and Computer Science at the School of Education and Social Policy, is an early pioneer in advocating for the power of computer modeling and simulations. In 1999, he developed the free, open-source tool NetLogo to help people understand complex problems such as climate change, pandemics and economic instability.
The platform lets people explore and build models that show how individual agents interact to create large-scale patterns. Used by both children and researchers alike, the tool provides a shared language for approaching complex issues across educational and academic settings.
“Uri’s contributions to how we think about learning are extraordinary, whether it is making NetLogo available to schools around the world or helping us understand the complex intersections between learning and technology,” said School of Education and Social Policy Dean Bryan Brayboy, who traveled to Hong Kong for the ceremony.
“While his work sits at the intersection of learning, computation, complexity theory and computer science, his life’s work has been about making it accessible to everyone. He’s a gift.”
Wilensky is a fellow of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His honors include a National Science Foundation Early Career Award, the Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Award and the 2016 International Society for Design and Development in Education Prize for Excellence in Design for his work on NetLogo.
“The possibilities for education are what excite me the most,” Wilensky said. “Understanding complex systems can empower us to change the world.”
The Yidan Prize, announced Sept. 29, is the world’s largest education prize. It includes $3.8 million in support, with half designated as a project fund to expand and scale the winner’s education initiatives. Founded in 2016 by Charles CHEN Yidan, a core founder of Tencent, the prize includes two awards: the Yidan Prize for Education Research and the Yidan Prize for Education Development.
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