Saudi education venture Noon attends US investment conference

A Saudi youth conducts a demo at the investment in education technology (ed-tech) conference in Salt Lake City in Utah.

RIYADH: The Noon Educational Platform, supported by the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), has become the first Saudi or Arab entity to participate in the ASU+GSV conference on investment in education technology, held recently in the US.
Chief Executive Mohammed Al-Dhelaan said that Noon was the only Arab body invited to speak to investors from all over the world at the annual conference.
He praised the role of KACST’s Badir Program in supporting and facilitating the participation of the Noon in this important conference.
The Noon Educational Platform — which specializes in social learning, artificial intelligence and the knowledge revolution — was given the opportunity to showcase its work and business insights to a host of potential investors and technology enthusiasts from Silicon Valley.
“Our participation in this conference comes after we recently concluded a successful investment tour at Noon Educational Platform which was (attended) by several local and regional investors, led by Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder and CEO of Careem, the cab-booking (service) in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Al-Dhelaan.
With more than 900,000 students enrolled in Noon, the educational platform aims to revolutionize the private-tutoring market and improve the education of millions in the Arab world. Noon aims to reformulate the concept of private tutoring by combining learning with pleasure and artificial intelligence.
Through Noon, a high school student is just a click of a button away from getting a private tutor on his phone, whenever needed, at a cost of about 70 percent less than when booked in person.
Noon is one of the most prominent projects of the Badir Program at KACST.