After having her second child, 35-year-old Eman Wagdy Selim felt that she had a bigger purpose in life. Although her background was in language and translation, the young Egyptian woman, with her husband’s support, had an idea to create a platform called ‘Al Faraza’ to provide high-quality fruits and vegetables at competitive prices. After listing 150 products, the platform began offering meat and cheese as well through start-up companies.

In 2019, Eman developed the project further into an app that allowed Egyptian women and other small-business owners who sold homemade meals, as well as local farmers, to bring their products to a wider audience.

Today, ‘Al Faraza’, an Egyptian word that refers to careful and attentive selection, supports Egyptian women in particular, providing them with job opportunities and income to secure decent lives for themselves and their families. They also have access to training opportunities to learn how to best prepare, market and sell homemade food to customers in Egypt through the app.

Eman’s idea only became a reality after she heard about the One Million Arab Coders Initiative, which provides online training courses to help Arab youth build and master coding skills so they can pursue jobs in digital technologies and develop their own high-tech projects.

She enrolled in the Initiative’s Data Analysis track, where she learned how to transform data into successful ideas. Acquiring these skills was a vital step towards the success of ‘Al Faraza’, and Eman is proud of the personal growth and achievements she has experienced thanks to the Initiative.

Overjoyed at the success of her project, Eman says: “‘Al Faraza’ has helped change the lives of 800 Egyptian women, and we will continue to grow and develop our project. We promise that we will expand the app’s reach to be accessible to all Egyptian women, wherever they are, so that we can grow together as one team.”