Hi there. This is Youwen. I study abstract nonsense and hack on computers at UC Berkeley. Welcome to my corner of the World Wide Web.
Previously, I was at UC Santa Barbara. I also spent a semester in the CS department at Tsinghua University.
I help run functor.systems, a small computing community, and tinker with MIT OpenCompute.
Here is my GitHub, university transcript, CV/resume, and a picture of my cats.
In general, I prefer to use free-as-in-freedom software. I developed functorOS, an experimental NixOS-based Linux distribution—among other free software contributions.
I like hacking, and hackathons. I helped organize the 2026 SB Hacks, the headliner hackathon of UC Santa Barbara, and was briefly its Director of Development.
See about for more about myself, or now for what I’m up to right now. Or explore the other pages on this website.
Discovery is a child’s privilege. I mean the small child, the child who is not afraid to be wrong, to look silly, to not be serious, and to act differently from everyone else. He is also not afraid that the things he is interested in are in bad taste or turn out to be different from his expectations, from what they should be, or rather he is not afraid of what they actually are. He ignores the silent and flawless consensus that is part of the air we breathe—the consensus of all the people who are, or are reputed to be, reasonable.
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Photos
Mission Peak at golden hour.
From the Chinese World Trade Center.
Flute player at 水木清华. Beijing's spring is so beautiful.
Nice stroll after class.
Rampart at Simatai, Great Wall of China.
View of the Yangtze River from our hot pot table.
The world is still beautiful.
Chongqing spicy peppers!
Don't tell Jo I put this here.
The blood moon from the eclipse.
Contact
Places
University of California, Berkeley (‘28)
Tsinghua University (S26)
University of California, Santa Barbara (cut short)