VOICES Jordan: An Online Learning Platform to Deliver Accessible, Quality Education

VOICES OF YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS IN THE MENA REGION

JORDAN: An Online Learning Platform to Deliver Accessible, Quality Education

Hamdi is a 34-year-old entrepreneur in Amman who is the cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) of a smart learning platform. Hamdi has been educated in some of the top education institutions in London, where he received his master’s degree.

The key motivation behind this endeavor came from the simple question that Hamdi wished to answer: “Why am I among so few in the MENA region who can get exposed to such high-quality education?” Hamdi knew from experience that quality education systems move students away from rote memory as the sole tool of learning and encourage them to become selfreliant, independent thinkers. With several limitations in the existing education system in Jordan, including high fees and inaccessibility, especially for refugees, there was a market for a learning platform. Hamdi spent two years interviewing students, teachers, government officials, and parents regarding their needs and desires in relation to learning and after-school tutoring. He incorporated their input into his model and launched the first version of the platform in February 2020, when COVID-19 started picking up speed in the MENA region.

About 100,000 students are now registered on Hamdi’s platform. More than 1 million students have learned from the platform since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the company opened it up for free during this crisis. The smart learning platform provides a seamless product and engaging content and uses the power of artificial intelligence to curate learning experiences for every student at a pace that works best for them. Today, the company employs more than 100 local staff and has offices in Amman and Cairo. In the next three years, Hamdi hopes to expand to the rest of the Arab world. He plans to establish offices across the MENA region with the goal of serving 10 million students in the coming five years.

Hamdi’s entrepreneurship journey leveraged his education and experience in the tech sector. He built the platform after years of attempting to start various businesses, some of which succeeded and some of which failed. Hamdi’s first-hand experience working with other established platforms in the transportation sector, seeing how technology positively disrupted the sector,

led him to consider how technology could have similar effects on education. Hamdi has identified several challenges that entrepreneurs such as him face, including access to finance, lack of a data infrastructure, and limited start-up services.

Hamdi has a few words of wisdom for his fellow entrepreneurs in the region. He believes that all entrepreneurs need to take risks to succeed. “Keep on iterating to find a product or a service that the customer needs and is willing to pay for. Surround yourself with solid team members who share your vision, and execute as hard as you can until you crack it. Also, remember that starting a new business in the MENA region has never been an easy journey; it is a marathon, not a sprint.”