This promising start led them to found Little Thinking Minds to produce Arabic language education and early literacy audiovisual content. ‘The first five years of a child’s life are so important for cognitive development and language skills,’ says Rama, ‘and too often in schools Arabic takes a backseat to learning English.’ With help from the Oasis 500 incubator, where they learned about the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards from previous finalists, Rama and Lamia began to work on the company full time in 2011, once other professional and family obligations had subsided. Now they have a full-time staff of five.

Little Thinking Minds offers a variety of content, including videos, online games and mobile applications. One of the company’s most popular products is a two-part DVD that uses animations to teach children the alphabet in Arabic. ‘Sadly, general Arabic teaching is not very engaging, lacking fun graphics and interactivity,’ says Rama. ‘Little Thinking Minds provides a holistic educational experience for kids where they watch the video content, play games related to the concepts learnt, sing songs and use worksheets.’ All focused on their region and its indigenous species and habitat.

In 2013, the company signed a distribution agreement with VIVA Entertainment, the largest DVD distributor in the Middle East, which has made its products available in eight countries and the regional Virgin Megastores and Carrefour hypermarkets. Two audio CDs are available through iTunes as well as videos that can be viewed via a mobile application. Approximately 30% of the company’s sales are digital, notching up 1 million views, while the rest are in-store.