Iran’s Tech Startup Spring | Faranesh.com judged Best Iranian Remote Learning Platform

TEHRAN, Iran |   Faranesh is an online learning website based in Iran.  During its second presence in the 9^th Iran Web and Mobile Festival — a festival which is held in February each year— and for the second consecutive year, Faranesh, was chosen as the best online learning website in Iranby the jury.

Said Mohammad Rashidi, founder and CEO of Faranesh after receiving the award: “Today distance education and online learning have evolved into one the primary resources for many people around the globe thanks to the growth of internet access and Iran is not an exception to this phenomenon. Over 60 percent of Iran’s 80 million people are under 30 years old with around 5 million university students.”

According to him, Franesh platform offering online training professionals in the production and distribution is educational. Franesh training in various business areas, programming, design and gaming are more than 90% of video are free of charge for users.

Iran also has one of the highest internet penetration rates and number of smartphones in the middle-east region. These numbers explain the reason for the growth of online learning platforms in Iran and Faranesh.com has played a major role in defining and developing this industry.

“Relying on the local models and Iranian users’ needs, Faranesh, is the biggest marketplace for high quality educational videos, which have been welcomed by both general students and educators,” Rashidi added.

Two-thirds of Iran’s 80 million people are younger than 35 and their share of the population is growing. Iran’s youths are better educated than any generation before them. (Today the country has the biggest proportion of engineering graduates in the world.) They’re also vastly more connected to the outside world than their parents’ generation—despite being raised under sanctions.

The effect has been profound.

Faranesh.com is considered as one of the most important and reliable online training resources in Iran; as it has succeeded to attract many users who are interested in learning different skills through proposing a myriad of local educational videos.

Faranesh, is also the winner of the United Nations International Youth Award in the branch of science for all in 2010 (Named KSNA by then) and after successfully graduating from Avatech (Iran’s first entrepreneurship accelerator) in 2016, changed its name to Faranesh which means “Beyond Knowledge” in Persian.

“What efficiently differentiates us from our counterparts in Iran is our concentration on quality of trainings. We also provide direct relationship between the educators and students, which has resulted both in high engagement and consent of the students,” Rashidi concluded.

It is notable that most online educational websites in Iran belong to universities and educational organizations, and presence of active and young private companies, such as Faranesh, has made this industry more competitive and has provided more choice for learning enthusiasts in Iran.

To the startup execs, their presence felt crucial—concrete proof that the nuclear agreement might finally pay off with an influx of foreign capital. “We need money and we need experience,” says Mohammad Rashidi, 27, CEO of Faranesh, a remote-learning platform he founded in 2014, as part of Avatech’s first batch of trainee entrepreneurs. He says Avatech’s program was essential in a country with “no knowledge at all about how to create a startup or raise funds.” Two years after launching, he says, Faranesh has two million students for its 600 online tutorials, and plans to begin offering courses later this year for the national university entrance exam.

Still, Rashidi acknowledges that sanctions have cost Iran’s start-ups valuable time. “There is a huge gap between what is happening here and in Silicon Valley. We are ten years behind.” The German and Austrian investors expressed just such doubts to me. “People do not yet have the feeling and mentality that matches Western business standards and ethics,” says Andreas Mach, founder of Alphazirkel International, a Munich-based family enterprise organization, who led the delegation. “This is the biggest obstacle.”

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As the available data represent, Faranesh currently provides more than , training courses which are offered in the different categories including: design and graphics, programming, security and network, digital life, foreign languages, K-12 schools and universities and business. By now, more than 280,000 users have enrolled in these courses, more than 35 million minutes of online videos have been played on Faranesh.com and some courses have been enrolled more than 4000 times.