Portraits of success: Hujiang a pioneer in online education

By Yuan Shenggao | China Daily | Updated: 2018-11-10 06:41

Online learning service provider Hujiang EdTech, situated in the Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone, has become a pioneer in helping poverty-stricken children in rural areas gain greater access to education.

The poverty-alleviation Hu+ Project, pronounced hujia, was launched by the company in 2015. Aiming to offer educational assistance to primary and middle schools in remote areas of China, the project takes advantage of internet services to provide online classes across the nation.

Children from rural areas can access lessons that have been "donated" by experienced teachers from cities around China through CCtalk, an interactive online education platform.

To date, some one million students from over 5,000 schools in more than 30 provinces around China have benefited from the project, according to Hujiang.

"Using the internet, our Hu+ Project breaks through the limits of space and time, setting up links between thousands of rural schools and excellent education resources nationwide, even around the globe," said Fu Cairui, CEO of Hujiang.

"Through the project, we aim to address educational problems in China's remote areas, as well as to provide a model for educating urban migrant children," he added.

Hujiang, established in 2001, operates the online education service platform hujiang.com and real-time interactive online education platform CCtalk in China.

The company said it has 170 million registered users and ranked first in many aspects among other players in China, for instance, in terms of the number of active users per month, number of third party operators on its platform, number of directly recruited teachers and number of programs being offered.

Hujiang said it has launched more than 2,000 education programs on hujiang.com to serve demands from a wide range of users, including kids in kindergarten, school students, university students and those who want to expand their professional skills after starting their careers.

The CCtalk platform, launched in 2016, offered 73,795 courses by the end of 2017. A total of 2,187 third party companies had launched operations on CCtalk, according to Hujiang.

The company submitted its prospectuses for an initial public offering in Hong Kong in July.

Starting with only 80,000 yuan and just eight staff members, Hujiang said the key to its development is continuously upgrading its operation model to make the company better fit the changing market demand. For instance, hujiang.com was established in 2009. The company then moved its focus from on personal computer terminals to mobile terminals in 2012. CCtalk was launched to serve people's demands for interaction in the learning process.

Zhangjiang, one of the hubs in promoting innovation in China, also provided strong support to Hujiang.

Various support policies were provided to the company in its development in different stages, and the zone also provided apartments to talented young Hujiang employees, allowing them to focus most of their attention on their careers.

In return, Hujiang said it will continue to expand operations, promoting innovations to support Zhangjiang's development.