Youdao Publishes First Corporate Social Responsibility Report
Youdao, Inc. (NYSE: DAO) released its inaugural Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report on May 23, 2022. The report details the company's policies and achievements in 2021, emphasizing its commitment to enhancing high-quality education through technology. Youdao has formed partnerships with over 20 educational institutions and provided services for free to support students amid regulatory challenges. Notably, it launched the iCourse International MOOC Platform and offered free remote teaching services to 2 million students. The company aims to empower users and society with digital learning solutions.
- Launched iCourse International MOOC Platform with 193 courses from over 50 universities.
- Provided free learning services to around 2 million students during COVID-19.
- Entered mutual assistance agreements with over 20 educational institutions to support students.
- Supported over 100 schools in rural areas through the 'One Screen' project.
- Developed accessible learning tools for 1,000 individuals with disabilities.
- None.
BEIJING, May 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Youdao, Inc. ("Youdao" or the "Company") (NYSE: DAO), a leading technology-focused intelligent learning company in China, today announced that it issued its first Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report on May 23, 2022. The CSR report outlines Youdao's key policies and performance in 2021 in relation to Youdao's responsibility as a corporate citizen, including its initiatives to enact positive influence on its users, employees, key stakeholders and society at large.
As part of its mission, Youdao strives to promote the development of high-quality education rooted in innovative technology and content, and to empower the industry and society with the benefits of digitalization and impactful learning scenarios.
Dr. Feng Zhou, the Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Youdao, said, "Over the past year, we have made considerable efforts to propel the development of technology-focused high-quality education, promote industry collaboration, and support vulnerable groups by leveraging our technological innovation. We will continue to build Youdao as an enterprise that can bring greater value to our users and the broader society, while constantly developing and delivering new product and service offerings to promote the long-term development of intelligent learning."
Youdao's complete 2021 CSR report is currently available in Chinese on https://note.youdao.com/s/JI6JiMsF. Key highlights from the report are listed below.
Support for Education Industry Players
Youdao is dedicated to the sustainable development of the education industry, while actively seeking business transformation. To date, Youdao has:
- Entered into mutual assistance agreements with more than 20 educational institutions in 2021 who faced difficulty in continued operations, and provided learning services to their students free of charges following the adverse regulatory development. Youdao, according to its internal statistics, has offered over 50,000 exchange courses in total, relieving the students' burden of not being able to enjoy the contents after purchasing courses.
Support for Students during the COVID-19 Outbreak
During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Youdao has actively utilized its scientific and technological innovation capabilities to help the majority of college students to keep learning even when offline classes were suspended.
- Launched the iCourse International MOOC Platform, in conjunction with Higher Education Press. The platform has 193 online courses launched from over 50 top universities in China, synchronizing the high-quality Chinese university curriculum resources with the rest of the world.
- Youdao Smart Cloud AI opened its platform to offer a free remote teaching system to primary and secondary schools and training institutions in China, and provided free learning services to more than 2,500 schools and institutions to serve around 2 million students.
- Donated 1,700 Youdao Dictionary Pens to the children of the medical staff who fought against the COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei province.
Support Rural Areas
Youdao continues to pay attention to the vast number of children in China's rural areas. The "One Screen" project held by NetEase Public Welfare has enabled distance learning by offering online courses in schools from remote areas in Sichuan, Hunan, Gansu, Chongqing, and other provinces and municipalities.
- By the end of 2021, more than 100 schools and thousands of students had benefited from the "One Screen" project.
- Youdao launched the "Youdao Foreign Language Reading Corner" public welfare project in 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions nationwide, benefiting nearly 60,000 children in rural areas as of December 31, 2021.
Support People with Disabilities
Youdao continues to remove learning barriers for people with disabilities, and optimize user experience of Youdao knowledge tools from multiple ports of iOS and Android.
- In 2021, Youdao launched a handful of assistance projects that helped nearly 1,000 people with disabilities to successfully find jobs at Youdao, as well as its business partners.
- Youdao joined the China Information Accessibility Products Alliance (CAPA), and launched an accessibility version of Youdao Dictionary by leveraging its self-developed scientific and technological capabilities to enable a user-friendly experience for the disabled.
- Youdao is recognized as the "Social Responsibility Demonstration Enterprise 2021" for Youdao's special contribution to the disabled population.
Support the Public Welfare after Natural Disasters
Youdao announced a donation and emergency aid program to support the reconstruction in Henan Province, China after severe deadly floods affected the region.
- After disastrous storms hit Henan in July 2021, Youdao quickly joined with public welfare partners to support the post-disaster reconstruction of ten schools and kindergartens, covering 10,000 students in the affected area.
Support Life-long Learning for Learners
Youdao launched NetEase Cloud Classroom and Chinese University MOOC to promote the online education for adults.
- As of December 31, 2021, the number of courses on the NetEase Cloud Classroom had exceeded 10,000, with a total of over 100,000 class hours, covering more than 10 categories such as financial management, interest courses and parent-child education.
- In 2020, Chinese University MOOC opened 554 high-quality online courses, accounting for
66.7% of the total number of "National Excellent Open Courses" recognized by the Ministry of Education, and ranking first among all MOOC platforms in China.
Support Education Digitalization
Youdao launched a series of end product and service offerings based on its Smart Cloud AI technology with a goal to empower on-campus intelligent teaching.
- By the end of 2021, Youdao had provided top-level design and overall solutions on education digitalization for schools in multiple regions. For example, Youdao has entered into strategic partnerships with more than 300 schools in 26 provinces to provide local teachers with Youdao Smart Learning Terminal and its supporting solutions, empowering them to dynamically track students' learning progress and thereby optimize their teaching results.
This CSR report also elaborated on the Company's social value concept from the perspectives of green supply chain, technological innovation, and employee care.
About Youdao, Inc.
Youdao, Inc. (NYSE: DAO) is a leading technology-focused intelligent learning company in China dedicated to developing and using technologies to provide learning content, applications and solutions to users of all ages. Building on the popularity of its online knowledge tools such as Youdao Dictionary and Youdao Translation, Youdao now offers smart devices, STEAM courses, adult and vocational courses, and education digitalization solutions. In addition, Youdao has developed a variety of interactive learning apps. Youdao was founded in 2006 as part of NetEase, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES; HKEX: 9999), a leading internet technology company in China.
For more information, please visit: http://ir.youdao.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and a number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "target," "aim," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "potential," "continue," "is/are likely to" or other similar expressions. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual reports to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding such risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and the Company does not undertake any duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
Investor Enquiries:
Jeffrey Wang
Youdao, Inc.
Tel: +86-10-8255-8163 ext. 89980
E-mail: IR@rd.netease.com
Media Enquiries:
Youdao, Inc.
globalpr@service.netease.com
Tel: (+86) 571-8985-2668
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SOURCE Youdao, Inc.
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