Turn the Arab youth challenge into a multibillion-dollar tech venture
I had the honor of meeting the Development Bank and University of Bahrain last week. Every time I go to the Middle East as a stopover to Dhaka in Bangladesh, the distinct heat of the climate makes me recollect my military tour of duty in Iraq. Experiences and impressions long forgotten suddenly surfaces and comes to mind again. I remember both the beauty and the horrors of Iraq — sometimes tears fill my eyes thinking about those of my British and Danish colleagues who did not make it home alive. Still, I have never been so utterly touched as when I read the foreword by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah in the IFC Education for Employment Report that I got after meeting with the IFC in Dubai. Her words portrayed the Arab youth:
“We are letting them down in ill-equipped classrooms with untrained teachers; we are letting them down with outmoded curriculums already obsolete in the modern marketplace; we are letting them down when they seek our advice and practical measures; and we are letting them down when we fail to expose them, at an early age, to the entrepreneurial spirit and potential of the private sector.”
I have never been so touched by words on a piece of paper in my entire life. I have never read words that so precisely explained the problem that we’re trying to solve with CodersTrust. I originally started CodersTrust based on my experience in Iraq. I was amazed to find an Internet café in the beautiful town of Al-Qurnah just north of Basra in the southern part of Iraq. We backed the entrepreneur by paying the educational services he provided for the local community. However, it was not until I realized the power of the freelance market as an IT entrepreneur, that I saw the opportunity to create a sustainable source of funding for education through this very market. I have told this story to co-founders, partners, investors, students and employees who believe in the vision to drive the launch and growth of CodersTrust in Bangladesh: A remarkable mission to break poverty in one of the poorest countries in the world. I tell that story every single time, because it is real and it proves that things can be different. Poverty can be fought, the battle can be won. Forbes Middle East recently featured CodersTrust as the code to break poverty, but I believe CodersTrust holds the promise for an even bigger challenge and opportunity in the Middle East.
As my colleagues and friends are back in Iraq, I am once again urging people to listen to the story of why the world needs CodersTrust to succeed in MENA. The Iraq War and the Arab Spring demonstrated that regime change could happen overnight, but sustainable long-term peace takes years to build. As much as we celebrate the French revolution in Europe, Edmund Burke taught us to focus on the practicality of solutions instead of the metaphysics. We should fight for practical solutions.
The race to Baghdad
I believe we offer a scalable solution with CodersTrust, a solution that can help solve the challenge of a region with the highest youth unemployment rate in the world. The educational shortcomings pose both economic and social problems that I believe we can fix. I believe CodersTrust can overcome internal conflicts by recruiting, extensive use of social media and execution on the ground. I believe CodersTrust can organize young people around this cause faster and more efficient than anyone else.
We do it by turning the problem into a multibillion-dollar opportunity. The IFC already wrote the business case for CodersTrust in the MENA region:
- The Arab world has the strongest growth markets in terms of education and employment needs
- The young population has the potential to be far more productive than the older one
- The “bulge” of young people entering the workforce is a window of opportunity for entrepreneurial energy
Why CodersTrust?
We’re trying something different! We’re on a mission to democratize access to paid education. We provide microfinance for underprivileged students to upgrade their skills, so they can earn more money on freelance sites such as Elance and oDesk. That simple proposition might solve the challenge defined by the IFC:
How will we win?
Recruiting: We will recruit the best and the brightest from Europe to join us and fight for our cause together with local teams. We will ask them to join as local founders of each market that we open. My co-founder Jan is a textbook example of how this approach can attract exceptionally skilled minds. Jan gave up a successful consulting carrier in Germany and went to spearhead the launch of CodersTrust in Bangladesh. Initially we had little to offer, but with investment coming in and raising the valuation, the company is now able to reward the pioneers that are leading the growth of CodersTrust with shares. We’re now deploying the next team to MENA and it will be vital to reward them, as they set out to create a business from just an idea and a vision.
Marketing: We will create a hub in UAE that will be used to broadcast educational content throughout the region. We will recruit, attract and educate students on social media. We will use social media as well as YouTube channels to broadcast and amplify the impact of educational content as a replacement of propaganda and lies from competing regional movements.
Finance: With student finance comes economic infrastructure for an unbanked population that needs saving accounts, mortgage loans and so fourth. We will ultimately be able to provide this on scale.
Call to action
We ask you to back us as friends, investors, and co-founders to enter into the MENA region and turn one of the biggest problems in the world into a multibillion-dollar tech venture that has the documented potential to create economic progress throughout the region. Our competitors might offer different promises, but our specific model offers a both stronger, far more realistic and ultimately empowering approach. We are confident that our value proposition of a connected and inclusive economy will prevail in the end.
