Finding few opportunities in his native Assiout to develop his talents and soft skills, Engineer Moustafa Abd Ellatif, 28, launched his ed-tech solution he named EYouth.
Egyptian Gazette: What’s the passion that fires your enterprise?
Mustafa Abd Ellatif: Finding solutions to provide young people with excellent learning opportunities at reasonable prices.
EG: What is your background?
MA: Communications and Electronics Engineering, in which I hold degrees from Assiout University and Connecticut University. I also have an MBA from the Arab Academy for Science and Technology.
EG: What are the issues you are solving? What is your value proposition?
MA: Youth unemployment and education in the Arab world and Africa. Our focus is on developing countries with young populations where we offer interactive educational programs accredited by international universities at reasonable prices for the 18-35 age group. The programmes help them find good job opportunities or develop their own careers. EYouth is an EdTech company with a website for more than 45 online programmes in Business and Entrepreneurship, Personal skills, Marketing, management and sales. Our only operations office is in Egypt, but we provide programmes in Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Africa and UAE.
EG: Tell us more about the process, users and your business model.
MA: The courses are on-demand interactive learning programs that are either recorded or live sessions as per user request. Of the 800,000 young participants, 127,000 have found new jobs. We offer participants accredited certificates after the end of the programmes and exams for obtaining certificates. Our business model is B2C, as clients pay per programme, whereas B2B2C involves funding organisations finance young people who cannot afford educational fees.
EG: What are your main challenges?
MA: The biggest challenge we face is the use of the concept of distance education in Arab or African countries, as the concept of online education is a modern concept in most developing societies. Still not many youngsters are still used to accomplish a full educational program online, so more awareness still needed to accomplish our goals and reach more youth in Egypt and other developing countries.
EG: What are your achievements? What are your future plans?
MA: The company was selected by LinkedIn as one of the top 10 Egyptian startups in 2021. The company was honoured by the Egyptian state as the best Egyptian company that contributes to achieving sustainable development goals, especially in the fourth goal, which is to provide quality education. The company’s presence in the list of the 50 best educational companies in the world. Our goal in 2022 is to expand in many Arab and African countries and reach a million and a half users and use more than 500 new interactive educational programs using the special provision of 3D programs to participants via our website.
EG: Do you think the Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem is helping you?
MA: I think that the entrepreneurship community and startups have begun to mature in the recent period, and this has led to the development of many aids for startups, and I believe that it will witness more development in the coming years.
