Manara

Manara (www.manara.tech) is a social impact startup whose mission is to unlock human potential and diversify the global tech sector while uplifting the economies of the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), with a focus on Palestine and women. The region has the highest youth unemployment in the world (higher than subSaharan Africa) despite high levels of tertiary education. Women are particularly impacted: in Palestine, 52% of computer science students are women, but 83% of them end up unemployed.

We run an entirely remote solution to identify the top computer scientists in the region, teach them how to pass interviews, vet them, and help them find amazing jobs (whether remote or on-site). It works: at Google 71% of our referrals in our last batch were hired.

We don’t stop at job placement. Our vision is to build the top tech talent community in the MENA region and support them at each stage in their lifecycle to help them reach their dreams: how to get a promotion, become a manager, be the first woman engineer on a team, etc. The community is driven by a tech product that facilitates connection, shared learning, and motivation.

Our team previously worked at Google, Upwork, Nvidia, Box, and Gaza Sky Geeks. We are experienced founders, operators, and technologists.

Our investors include Stripe, Y Combinator, Seedcamp, Reid Hoffman, Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Namrata Ganatra (the former CTO of Lambda School), Christina Sass (the former President of Andela), and Emma Tracey (the founder of Honeypot).