Alfanar recently introduced two new organisations to our portfolio of investees; iSTEM in Egypt and The Little Engineer in Lebanon.

Maintaining our focus on youth empowerment and education, strengthening these organisations through financial and technical support brings us closer to our long term goal of a region where the poor and vulnerable, especially women and children, are able to access the education and opportunity they need to lead productive and dignified lives.​ 

With both The Little Engineer and iSTEM focusing on strengthening STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), a critically neglected area on both Lebanese and Egyptian curriculums, these organisations are developing innovative solutions to the urgent challenge of preparing future generations for a rapidly changing global jobs market in which an estimated 50% of jobs will be lost to automation.

The Little Engineer

The Little Engineer is an award-winning initiative in Lebanon launched to unleash the potential of young minds aged 6 to 18 in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM),  through custom-tailored, hands-on learning courses that supplement traditional learning. 4829 children between 11 and 18 have now been exposed to STEM education through The Little Engineer's programmes.

iSTEM

iSTEM transforms the lives of children between 6 and 14 in poor and slum areas in Egypt through the development of their computational thinking skills. Offering a hands on approach to learning robotics and the core principles of technology through weekly after-school classes, iSTEM has trained over 490 children in total, at an average of 245 each year.