About

italki.com is an online destination for learning foreign languages. italki connects people from around the world in a friendly community to learn from each other. italki helps people meet online to do free language exchanges. italki also helps students connect with teachers for paid online lessons. In addition, italki has many free language learning features, such as questions and answers, group discussions, and multimedia materials for self-study.

italki is both a social network and a marketplace. The social network helps bring people together to communicate and learn. The marketplace gives students, teachers, and companies the abililty to transact online.

italki was created with the belief that the internet is radically changing the way people learn foreign languages. The internet is removing previous barriers to learning so that everyone can have access to language partners, language teachers and language materials. With resources like italki, we hope that anyone, anywhere in the world can learn a foreign language.

Mission Statement

italki helps people learn foreign languages. italki intends to become the leading platform for online language learning by using Web 2.0 concepts to provide users with the most complete language learning tools available on the net.

italki.com's features include:

• Connecting native speakers to practice speaking a foreign language
• Helping language teachers offer their expertise to anyone, anywhere in the world
• Offering multimedia and one-on-one lessons for English (and other languages coming soon)
• Giving language learners the ability to communicate online in text, voice, and even video
• Using the community to answer language questions
• Developing a platform for sharing free open-source language learning materials (download and upload)
• Recommending other resources on the web
• Providing a space for people from around the world to experience and learn about other cultures

italki Milestones

2009
September - Adam Jackson becomes an advisor http://www.italki.com/static/press/16.htm

2009
August - italki is Bizspark Startup of the Day http://blog.italki.com/2009/08/italki-is-bizspark-startup-of-the-day/

2009
July - Marketplace expands to include service provider, Eleutian http://www.italki.com/static/press/3.htm

2009
March - italki launches language tutoring marketplace

2008
May - New version of italki: italki Knowledge
May - Eric Pang and William Bao Bean join italki
June - Tom Soohoo becomes an advisor
June - Steven Huang joins Board of Directors

2007
July - italki receives first round of angel funding ($150,000 USD)
December - New version of italki: italki Answers, Shared Files, and support for 12 languages

2006
March - Domain name italki.com is registered
September - Founders begin planning italki
December - Initial launch of italki.com

italki Team

Yongyue Jiang - CEO
Eric Pang - President & COO
Hisun Wu - VP of Community Development

Directors
Yongyue Jiang
Kevin Chen
William Bao Bean
Stephen Huang

Advisors
Tom Soohoo
Porter Erisman