Former NBA Star Yao Ming Signs TutorGroup Partnership

TutorGroup, pharmacy a leading online education platform has signed a long-term partnership agreement with former NBA All-Star and global icon Yao Ming.

Yao will endorse TutorGroup’s suite of English and Chinese language learning products, remedy including TutorABC, find VIPABC and TutorMing, in China and around the world.

With more than 2,000 teachers in 30 countries and 60 cities around the world, TutorGroup provides real-time interactive language learning through millions of class sessions annually. 

To kickstart this partnership, TutorGroup and Yao will jointly provide 30,000 English-language lessons to students of the Yao Ming Foundation free of charge, delivering quality English-language lessons across China, including rural areas where finding a quality English teacher can be more difficult. In 2014, TutorGroup and Yao will provide a scholarship program for Chinese-language students in the United States, through TutorGroup’s Chinese language-learning product, TutorMing.

“We are proud to call Yao Ming a partner in our mission to provide an education platform that teaches how people learn today,” said Dr. Eric Yang, CEO of TutorGroup. “Like Yao, we believe a better and more modern education system is critical for the future prosperity of our world. By uniting the best teachers from around the globe with students that can learn on their own schedule, with a technology platform that provides the best learning content, class size and pace, we are breaking down the barriers of distance, borders and education. Yao is excited to join us in this endeavor.”

“The greatest contribution TutorGroup makes, in support of education, is to shorten the distance between people,” Yao said. “There are many places around the world that lack teachers to provide an excellent education. They may have good classrooms and equipment, but the lack of teachers is a very serious problem.

“I am excited to work together with TutorGroup to bring our world closer together through English and Chinese language education,” Yao continued. “I am a student on VIPABC and look forward to being a teacher on TutorMing later this year. Soon, you can call me Tutor Ming on TutorMing.”

Over the month of January, and through the Chinese New Year holiday period, Yao will be seen on advertising for TutorGroup’s products featured in newspapers, magazines, outdoor billboards, buses, taxi touch screens, across Shanghai. Yao will also be featured in a series of TV commercials that will run on national television, and will also appear in three “micro-movies” that will run on several of China’s leading video sharing websites.