(This is reproduced from the posting I made on my Facebook Page on 15th Aug 2025.)

This remarkable lady from China is Cindy Mi (2nd right), founder & CEO of VIPKid which was once a very successful online tuition platform that offered one-on-one online English tutoring service with North American for children in China. In its heydays, it had 100,000 American teachers and 600,000 students in its ecosystem.

VIPKid was valued at about USD3 billion at one point. Cindy told me that just 4 days before its initial public offering in the US, the exercise had to be called off because the Chinese authorities in a swift policy change in 2021 effectively banned private tutoring lessons with foreign educators. That was probably also the biggest disappointment for her team, big-name backers and early investors.

Despite the setback, she is quick on her feet, and adapting to the new challenges by moving her headquarters to Singapore and adopting artificial intelligence tools to expand VIPKid services to more than 100 countries in the coming few years. The platform will use AI to analyze student behaviors and teachers’ delivery quality. Malaysia is likely to be a growing market due to its positioning as an education hub in Asia.

She visited me and my education group recently to discuss a potential collaboration. I’m of course very glad to be able to sit down and talk with someone who had reached instant billionaire status … well almost. While her initial grand plans had collapsed, caused by external factors beyond her control, her spirit of entrepreneurship obviously still burns strong, and she wants to move on to her next breakthrough. Sometimes a fall is just the start of a higher climb.