SHANGHAI, Jan. 4 -- World-renowned basketball player Yao Ming has joined hands with e-education agency VIPABC to provide online English teaching sessions for children in China's less developed west, so as to present them with better chances to pursue their own dreams.

As part of their cooperation, VIPABC and the Yao Foundation are poised to take advantage of their respective strengths to offer online English teaching sessions free of charge for indigent students in western China.

"Lots of places in China's west are indeed short of educational resources ... The lack of teachers is a particularly serious problem, which cannot be solved within one or two years," said Yao.

The former NBA star has turned into an active philanthropist since his retirement from professional basketball - volunteering for Special Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo, donating to Wenchuan Earthquake victimes, building schools and protecting wild life.

"Through remote education, VIPABC can link children living in those mountainous areas with foreign teachers across the world," said Yao.

"That will not only facilitate their language learning, but also offer them a chance to change their outlook, to see the outside world, and to help their imagination break away from the cage of the mountains."

Boasting a 1,000-strong staff of select foreign teachers and equipped with a sea of independently developed teaching materials, a revolutionary point-to-point real-person mobile education platform and the world's first dynamic course generation system, VIPABC is dedicated to and capable of providing customized, private, efficient and real-time English training services. So far, VIPABC has carried out more than 5 million real-person training sessions in 14 countries or regions with a coverage of nearly all time zones.

More cooperation projects for educational charity are in the offing between VIPABC and the Yao Foundation, said Dr. Eric Yang, the CEO.

"Language has the power to make a difference. We will continue to use our faculty and platform advantages to help more people pursue their goals. I think that is our social responsibility," he said.