Tianchi Li

Online learning has shown significant growth over the last year.

How can we help children learn programming better? This is a question that Li Tianchi, the founder and CEO of Codemao, has been thinking about since he founded this startup in 2015. The company focuses on child programming education, and it has served more than 21,000 schools in China and raised more than 300 million USD.

When Tianchi founded Codemao in 2015, most children's programming companies chose to use Scratch or products based on Scratch, resulting in similar products and curriculum. Tianchi believes that this could be huge potential for Codemao to innovate by developing a novel source code editor in-house.

In 2015, his team launched Kitten, a tool that encapsulates complex programming code languages into simple building blocks. It became the first independent research and developer of graphic programming platforms in China. Based on Kitten, Codemao then built Wood, Box3.0, Nemo, and Roki to extend its product line. Take Nemo as an example. It was released in 2018 and became the first children's programming tool available on both PC and mobile platforms.

In order to innovate the course content and bring the best programming practices, Codemao has been looking for programming experts around the world to join the company. Tianchi has been leading the company for years, and Codemao now has a team with many post-doctoral, professors, and other senior experts.

As one of the leading companies in the children's programming industry, Tianchi believes that there is a fundamental demand in the industry. The tools, products, and platforms have to advance and improve rapidly, which requires continuous investment and quick adoption of new business models.