Bilin Academy is on a mission to make multilingual learning feel natural, joyful, and accessible—no matter where a child lives. Founded by Huayi He and launched just before the pandemic, the Chicago-based startup is a global online marketplace that connects professional teachers with K–12 learners for engaging instruction in math, science, chess, and other core subjects—taught in a target language. “We connect professional teachers with children to create multilingual learning experiences—core subjects like math or science, but taught in the second language,” He explains. The value proposition is simple and compelling: pair subject-matter expertise with real language immersion, delivered through a borderless digital classroom.
A Global Footprint from Day One
Bilin has been engineered for international collaboration. Roughly half of its customers are in the United States, about forty percent are in China, and the remaining share comes from elsewhere around the world. The team itself is equally distributed, with staff across multiple U.S. time zones and colleagues in China. “Our business is made to be international,” He says. “The more global we go, the more value we can provide—students get genuine exposure to language and culture, and teachers discover a broader world of learners.”
The Digital Stack That Powers Bilin
Behind the scenes, Bilin runs on a digital stack anchored by Amazon Web Services for infrastructure, chosen for reliability and global reach. The company relies on familiar platforms for day-to-day collaboration and uses PayPal to pay teachers across borders—an essential tool for a marketplace that must compensate educators quickly and predictably. Bilin is also introducing AI helpers to support its service team. “We’re building an AI assistant for our support team—so when a new or tricky question comes in, they can query the tool and get a solid first draft of the answer,” He notes.
Why Digital Trade Rules Matter
Operating at the intersection of education and international commerce means Bilin’s trajectory is shaped by digital trade rules. He is candid about policy proposals that could raise costs and complexity for small firms.
Data localization and forced local clouds. Requirements to store data within a specific country and to use a designated domestic cloud, she argues, would hit companies like hers hardest. “That makes international business very difficult—it adds cost and extra labor,” she says. “For companies like ours, it doesn’t add safety; it adds burden.”
Taxes on cross-border data. He is wary of efforts to tax digital transmissions. “Global trade has lowered taxes over time because everyone benefits,” she argues. “Taxing data moves in the opposite direction—it risks blocking trade rather than facilitating it.”
Source code and algorithm disclosure. Mandates to hand over source code or algorithms to enter a market are, in her view, counterproductive. “Your code is what makes your business work; forcing disclosure adds risk and hurts innovation.”
A Founder’s Why
He’s perspective is rooted in lived experience. Growing up in China, she studied English without an immersive environment. Later, in the United States, she encountered the reverse challenge: finding professional Chinese teachers who could teach the subjects her children loved, in Chinese. “Language without environment is hard,” she reflects. “I wanted subject-area learning in the target language—not just vocabulary drills. That’s the gap Bilin fills.” The impact travels both ways. “It’s student-to-teacher, people-to-people,” she says. “Teachers tell us it’s eye-opening to meet children from different parts of the world. It builds empathy and understanding on both sides.”
Lessons from Globalization
He watched how China’s 2001 accession to the WTO catalyzed rapid growth and worries that a broader turn toward protectionism could close doors that entrepreneurs have only just opened. “I watched how joining the WTO changed the economy in a very short time,” she says. “Now I worry when countries want to close doors. Bilin is built on two countries working together; if politics label that a threat, it hurts real people.”
Recommendations for Policymakers
Her advice is practical rather than ideological: keep cross-border data flowing; allow firms to choose global clouds that already meet high security standards; right-size compliance for small and medium-sized enterprises with templates, safe harbors, and recognition of existing controls; reduce the cost and delay of small cross-border payouts; and invest in people-to-people digital exchanges that pair language with STEM and creative content. “If policymakers want safer, more prosperous communities, support the tools that connect us,” she says. “Lower the frictions. The rest—innovation, empathy, opportunity—will follow.”
What’s Next
Five years in, Bilin continues to expand its catalog of subjects and deepen language-plus-content, while scaling its teacher network and folding in AI-supported service. The focus remains steady: quality, trust, and access—the elements that make a marketplace durable across borders and time zones. “In a digital world, students should have more access to international and multilingual education,” He says. “That’s the future we’re building.”