OBM Education is Guiding 2 Million+ MENA Students to Careers They Love

For generations, the journey from high school to higher education across the MENA region has been governed by deeply entrenched societal expectations and familial pressures. These expectations have routinely funnel the region’s brightest youth into a narrow, rigid selection of traditional prestige careers, often completely disregarding individual talent and personal passion.

“Your parents might want you to become a doctor or an engineer," explains Omar Mohammad Al-Barbary, founder and CEO of the startup trying to solve this common trope, OBM Education. "That may not be what you want for yourself, though.”

To dismantle this cultural archetype, Al-Barbary launched the Egypt-based EdTech startup in 2020, aiming to provide comprehensive college and career guidance to high school students navigating these pivotal life decisions across the MENA region. The startup has already scaled rapidly, reaching over two million students - specifically in Egypt and Saudi Arabia - through career mentorship, localised skill development programmes, and major professional summits like 'Build Your Future'.

At the core of their regional expansion is a fundamental, systemic question that traditional educational frameworks have long failed to address. As Al-Barbary puts it: “How does a high school student choose a college based on their interests, skills, and financial situation? We’re trying to bridge the gap between what students study academically and the opportunities available to them, so they can pursue careers they love.”

To bridge that gap at scale for a mobile-first generation, OBM Education introduced Taleb - an AI-powered app that has already onboarded over half a million students. So how exactly does this app use AI to help students find the right career path?

After downloading it, the student registers with their information and school year, and then takes a specialised AI assessment. After analysing the student's unique interests, the assessment matches them with three potential career paths. For example, a student might be paired with graphic design, pharmaceutical sciences, and communications.

Taleb then breaks down the realities of each path, listing the pros and cons of each job, the average salary, and the specific universities they can apply to across the Arab world to study the subject. Beyond the algorithms, the platform connects students with real-world career coaches and university advisors, whilst offering short ‘crash courses’ that condense six hours of academic material into just one highly engaging hour. “We really worked to simplify things and make them more engaging for the mindset of today’s high school students,” Al-Barbary says of Taleb’s user-friendly features.

Ultimately, Taleb is broadening the horizon of career paths for high school students, helping them discover vital modern roles they might not have otherwise known existed. Having spoken with thousands of these youth, Al-Barbary is already seeing a tangible shift in how the next generation approaches higher education. “After launching Taleb, students are choosing universities based on their interests,” he notes.

Al-Barbary is intimately familiar with the struggles students face when trying to convince their parents that they are confident in an unconventional choice of study. He faced that exact same pressure to take a traditional path when it was time for him to enrol in university. “I came from a family of engineers,” he reflects. “They wanted me to study engineering at university, but I told them, ‘No, I want to study mass communication. I know what I want to be.’”

With Taleb, his ultimate hope is that students across the region can make more informed, data-driven decisions about their futures, feeling fully empowered to pursue careers that reflect their true potential rather than simply conforming to the expectations placed upon them.