RIYADH — Middle East’s leading EdTech startup Noon Academy, a graduate of Saudi Arabia’s Badir Program for Technology Incubators and Accelerators, has won the prestigious Real Innovation Award at the London Business School 2018.

Noon Academy’s founding team was recognized for it’s innovation and ‘unreasonable’ determination to make a mass impact on education. It’s a five-years journey filled with thousands of experiments and data-driven validation that transformed Noon Academy from a simple test prep website into a social learning platform where students study with their friends in groups, compete with each other, and request top tutors on demand.

“What kept us moving for many years was the desire to see our ideas LIVE, learn in real-time feedback, and make a meaningful impact to the world around us. For that reason, we give our employees full autonomy, focus on results, and be transparent. That worked so well with Noon and created an incredible sense of ownership and commitment among our talented team,” Mohammed Aldhalaan, Co-founder and CEO of Noon Academy remarked.

Expressing his profound appreciation for the Badir Program, he said: “We are thankful to the Program for facilitating a stronger startup ecosystem in the region that supports and enhances growth opportunities for startups as well as entrepreneurs.”

Launched in 2013 with just two tutors and less than 30 students by two Saudi entrepreneurs - Mohammed Aldhalaan and Dr. Abdulaziz Alsaeed, Noon Academy today has more than 1.6 million students and 1,500 certified tutors in Saudi Arabia alone. It plans to enroll 50 million students in five years by expanding to other emerging markets.

Badir Program is one of the leading programs of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. The Program was established in 2008 to improve and support technical entrepreneurship throughout the Kingdom by helping the strategic policy applied in entrepreneurship and incubators in collaboration with government agencies, universities and the private sector. — SG