The European Union Mission to Libya celebrated three young Libyan women who created an innovative educational application to help children learn remotely. The app is designed to help children overcome the difficulties arising with distance learning at a time of COVID-19 pandemic.
The three Libyans created the app as part of an initiative funded by the European Union to bridge the communication gap between Benghazi-based schools and parents. According to the EU delegation’s online statement, the founders called their app Panda.
Tufahah Amin, one of the three founders of ‘Panda’ said, “as the schools closed for an undetermined period from March 2020, and because of the lack of technology used by the Libyan education sector, we realised that the potential for online education would be very limited here.” Tufalah Amin and her friends Aziza Al-Hassi and Amina Kashroud are all from Benghazi.
In 2017, the trio received a special grant to kick off their enterprise with the help of the Tatweer Entrepreneurship Campus, an EU-funded initiative aimed at empowering Libyan entrepreneurs and promoting local start-ups.
Aziza al-Hassi explained that their initial online app ‘School Connect’ was developed in January 2018. The electronic platform aimed to connect teachers and parents to follow up on the students’ education, focusing on key behavioural and academic aspects of the children’s school life.