Nafham.com

Location:
Egypt, and the Arab World.
Alfanar Investee since:
2016
Total Alfanar investment:
£26,000
Social impact:
Focusing on Egypt, Alfanar will run an impact assessment with 720 Egyptian students between the ages of 6 and 17, in-person and online, on the most effective ways to generate video content. This will be used to develop 600 videos based on the recommendations.
http://www.nafham.com/

Nafham.com aims to provide open-source educational material to children in the Arab world.

The Challenge

With illiteracy across the Arab world at 22 percent according to the World Bank, and Egypt's population growth rate expected to exceed the number of seats available to children in public schools, new tools and digital platforms are needed to fill the gap.


The Organisation

The award-winning website Nafham, meaning 'we understand' in Arabic, is the largest Arab world Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), hosting over 23,000 videos between 5 and 20 minutes in length. Founded in 2012, it sees 700,000 unique visitors each month. Using its crowd-sourced videos, it directly covers the curricula of Egypt and several other countries in the Arab world. With a website, smart-TV app as well as apps for most standard mobile phone operating systems, it seeks to make education accessible to all children in the Arab world.


Investment Focus

Alfanar's investment in Nafham seeks to undertake a research study to strengthen the site's learning outcomes and user interface. We will use this study to understand how to make Nafham's videos more effective, and use this research to generate 600 new videos. We will also assist Nafham in the creation of a three-year business plan to ensure that the website is able to operate sustainably.