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534

GPD CoO890
Continent of OriginM
GDP DC890
Destination ContinentM
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Home Changehc
For the past five years, 22-year-old Syrian student Leen has seen her country ruined by bombings, battles and one of the biggest population displacements in modern history. But determined to help rebuild the nations economy for her fellow young people, Leen – a computer science undergraduate at the University of Damascus – has launched an award-winning, Arabic-language app to help young people in Syria, and beyond, learn to code. Just six months since its launch, Leens Remmaz app already has over 500 active users learning to code, design websites and develop apps (application programs) on the platform she and her business partner started developing while they were second-year university students. Their aim is to create an accessible, Arabic online learning MOOC (massive open online course) to address the lack of non-English programming resources available to Arab communities, particularly young people looking for employment in conflict-scarred Syria. Leen and her team are in the process of crunching the data to find out more about Remmazs users. However, they already know that most are based in Morocco and aged between 20 and 23 – university-age students looking for work opportunities, she suggests. Remmaz is a startup whose mission is to make an evolution in online learning about programming in the Arab world, to empower people to learn about cutting-edge technology tools through Arabic content, in an easy and accessible way, to let them be qualified for a job opportunity in one of the highest-paid jobs – programming, says Leen. Leen launched Remmaz after attending a three-week training course in December 2015, supported by the UNFPAs Innovation Fund, on how to start and manage a small business. She initially heard about the course through her startup incubator. Having developed her idea, she was keen to gain some commercial skills and make contacts. I began my startup when I was in the second year of university, so I lacked business knowledge and entrepreneurship culture, she says, speaking from her adopted city of Damascus; she left her home town of Harasta when the conflict made it untenable for her family to remain there. This program was a great opportunity, as the mentors and trainers have 20 years of real experience in this field, which was really important for me. At the end of the course, 17 projects were chosen for further UNFPA support. Along with Remmaz, they included computer maintenance, after-school programs and online computer games. More recently, Remmaz won an entrepreneurship competition for Syrian startups, taking a $15,000 prize that will go towards expanding the app, says Leen. After graduation this summer, Leen plans to take a masters degree in artificial intelligence and organize hackathons in collaboration with UNFPA and Damascus Girl Geeks. But she remains focused on her vision for Syria. Big businesses are closing and the problems we are facing only young people can solve, she says. The need for startups and entrepreneurship culture is really essential for Syria. This article originally appeared on Refugee Deeply.
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