AMMAN — Unihance started back in 2018, as
the first and the biggest decentralized e-learning platform in the Arab world.
"Unihance is a
platform that gives a way for specialists, instructors, universities, companies,
and academies to create and then upload professional courses on the platform
without any restrictions and financial cost” the CEO of Unihance, Ahmad Obaidat,
told
Jordan News in a recent interview.
اضافة اعلان
Being a decentralized e-learning platform is
one of the unique things about Unihance, “decentralized means that the process
of sharing knowledge is from peer-to-peer; any instructor can upload a course
from anywhere without having to communicate with Unihance officially; therefore,
any student can have it. We do not upload or own the content,” Obaidat said.
“We think of ourselves as
‘the Uber’ of knowledge; we have a platform where the knowledge providers can
reach the knowledge seekers. We do not own the courses just like how Uber does
not own the cars. The drivers own the cars and Uber only helps ‘seekers’ find
the drivers,” he explained.
According to the CEO, the main objective of the
platform is to help reduce and minimize the knowledge and scientific gap in educational and the requirements
of the labor market in the Arab world.
"We want to help increase cooperation
between university students and the marketplace by enhancing and
enriching the Arabic e-learning content so we can minimize the gap between
knowledge and skills,” Obaidat explained.
The CEO said that more than 500,000 students
visit the platform monthly, and that it has over 500 professional and
scientific courses available. “It is the highest growing e-learning platform in
the Arab world” Obaidat added.
The platform also offers a huge variety of
courses, including IT, engineering, medicine, finance, marketing, design,
teaching, photography, art, and even music. Some of the courses are free of
charge, some you have to pay JD10–50 to enroll in.
“What is also unique about Unihance is that it
is the first platform that provides social networking and a real-time chat, so
users can share their ideas, connect, and chat with. … instructors and academics
and even other students around the world,” Obaidat told
Jordan News.
The platform’s instructors include experts and
professionals in their respective markets, Obaidat explained.
The CEO also said that the company is working
on “an artificial
intelligence system for the platform. We are building a ‘virtual agent’ that
will help each user with career guidance, and give suggestions and
recommendations on the most important educational paths that suit the user’s
educational level and inclinations.”
And despite the
COVID-19 situation negatively impacted nearly every sector, the pandemic
actually highlighted “the importance of online decentralized learning in the Arab
world,” Obaidat said.
He continued: “The
world in general has depended on online courses since 2012, and it has affected
students in a positive way, unlike here; we did not realize how important
online learning was until last year when the pandemic hit.”
To take a course,
you must sign up for the platform, and then you can take the free courses or
pay for ones you need via
Zain cash or credit card if the courses are not free
of charge.
As for future
plans, Obaidat said that they are thinking of expanding the platform, so as to
offer courses in English. “There are some courses that are in English now
already, we are also looking to expand globally and offer content maybe in
Spanish, Turkish, and French,” Obaidat said.
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