Top Jordanian Entrepreneurs 2020

6 min readOct 2, 2020

Today, we’re going to take a look at 3 Jordanian entrepreneurs bringing innovation and progress to the MENA region and the world. These Jordanian entrepreneurs are gamechanging, innovative and should be an inspiration to every Jordanian out there!

1) Nour Al-Hassan

Nour Al-Hassan at the World Economic Forum

Picture creds: Flickr

Nour Al-Hassan is a Jordanian entrepreneur from Amman. She got her Law degree from Al-Ahlia University. While working for an international organization, Nour noticed that there was a serious lack of English-Arabic translation services. To remediate to that, she founded @Tarjama, a small translation service agency, employing mostly educated, bilingual women working remotely. Based in the UAE, Tarjama Team now employs 400 people (full-time and half-time included), with 90% of them being women.
The company has turned from a traditional translation agency to a more tech oriented one, as Tarjama now uses AI and machine learning technology alongside their human translators, allowing for more efficient and precise translations. As an impact driven company, Tarjama also developped a translation training program that has allowed to employ 300 women. The company now offers translation in more than 50 languages, using its large and diverse network of freelancers.
In 2018, Al-Hassan embarked on a new venture: Ureed.com. Ureed allows companies to hire talented freelancers in the Arabic editorial and linguistic world directly through the platform. In an interview given to “Entrepreneur Middle East”, Al-Hassan declared that she envisioned Ureed as becoming “the largest marketplace for Arabic content writers and translators in the world”.

What’s interesting about Al-Hassan is her visionary attitude when it comes to working from home. Her avant-guardiste attitude towards the matter has definitely paid off for all of her companies during the pandemic. Tarjama and Ureed inherently make it easier for people to work at home. Nour’s success in the field makes her an inspiration to every Jordanian.

2) Hamdi Tabaa

A picture of entrepreneur Hamdi Tabaa wearing a Abwaab jacket.

Picture credits: AsiaTechDaily

Hamdi Tabbaa is the definition of a serial entrepreneur. After receiving a Bachelors degree in Business Management from Kings College and a Masters in Real Estate Economics from LSE, Tabbaa returned to Jordan and started Dukkan, an organized grocery retail neighborhood store which he later on sold. He also built Uber in Jordan from the ground up and scaled it in Lebanon and Qatar.
During his time at Uber, Hamdi took an executive course at Harvard where he learned a lot. However, he felt it “wasn’t fair how only a small percentage of the population had access to this level of quality education”. At the same time, after realizing and seeing the impact that technology could have on mobility from his time at Uber, Hamdi started thinking about the ways in which he could implement tech into the education sector.
After a conversation regarding the future of ed-tech in the region with his now-CTO Hussein Alsarabi, who is the former director of technology and product development at Mawdoo3.com, Hamdi identified a very clear gap in the market: Very high dependence on after school tutoring for Arabic speaking students (which leads to students spending a very high proportion of their parents’ income on tutoring.) and limited reliable online resources catered to Arabic speaking students.
It is out of a drive to solve these problems that Abwaab was born. Abwaab is an online platform that provides students with cheap, short concept based lessons that are mapped out to the curriculum of their country. These high quality videos are made by professional and respected teachers. Abwaab offers a freemium subscription model and has more than 1000 videos to date. Abwaab’s long-term vision is to leverage the power of AI and Machine Learning to provide students with curated learning paths that match their learning pace. Tabbaa also seeks to expand Abwaab’s operation to the whole MENA region, which he says is a huge market filled with potential. He states that “[his] goal is to neutralize the effects of geography and economic background on the access to high quality education”.

This has been an incredible year for Tabbaa. Before going live, Abwaab was able to raise 2.4 million dollars in pre-seed funding. In February of 2020, Abwaab partnered with the Jordanian government and was able to provide online educational content to more than 100,000 students amidst the national lockdown.

3) Mary Nazzal

Picture credits: Flickr

Mary Nazzal is fa5r il ordon — Jordan’s pride. She was born in Beirut but was raised in Jordan, where she graduated from the same school GrowHome co-founder Marwan Abdelhamid went to — ACS. In 2013, Mary was chosen by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. Mary has also been chosen as one of Forbes Most Powerful Arab women for consecutive years, and her work was featured as a Forbes cover story.
Mary is the founder of Landmark Hotels, which offers clients and employees a family-friendly environment based on sustainability.
Mary is also the Executive Chairperson of 17 Ventures, an impact investment and advisory firm specialized in aligning businesses with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2017, she helped launch SEAF’s (Small Enterprise Assistance Fund) Jordan Growth and Impact Fund — which is structured to deliver financial returns and create sustainable jobs with a focus on women and youth in Jordan and Palestine.
Mary is also a Managing Director for SEAF’s Globally Displaced Peoples’ Fund, a global fund with a refugee-lens.
A mother of three children, Mary is also a volunteer brand ambassador for the Social Enterprise Project (SEP), which produces high-end fashion accessories by female artists who live in Gaza Refugee Camp in Jordan.

On top of all that, Mary has been championing Palestinian rights for over 15 years in Europe and the United States. She was the chair of the Palestine Legal Aid Fund and serves on several boards, including Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, and the Royal Film Commission of Jordan.

No wonder Forbes hit her up.

If you want a more in-depth analysis of the Jordanian entrepreneurship ecosystem, feel free to check out our article on the subject.

The Jordanian Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

A Dynamic Start

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