Crescent Petroleum and Edraak Launch AI Training to Equip Young Arabs for Future Jobs

Editorial Team

Last updated 17-11-2025

4 min

Crescent Petroleum and Edraak have launched an AI training programme for young Arabs.

The AI for Employment initiative offers four practical Arabic courses on AI skills.

Courses cover AI tools, prompt writing, and applying AI in various industries.

Youth unemployment in MENA remains high, emphasizing the need for future-ready skills.

Edraak provides free, Arabic-language education, serving over 10 million learners since 2014.

Crescent Petroleum has teamed up with Edraak to roll out a new AI training track aimed at giving young Arabs a better shot in the modern workplace, and it’s already building on a pretty solid base. The two organisations launched the Career Compass Pathway last year, and—believe it or not—1.3 million learners have registered so far to sharpen skills like workplace English and basic IT. I remember chatting with a group of founders at an Arageek event who said they struggled to find junior hires with these very skills, so this kind of initiative feels spot on.

Their new programme, called AI for Employment, goes a step further. It bundles four online courses delivered fully in Arabic, focusing on practical AI use rather than heavy theory. We're talking things like writing stronger prompts, using AI productivity tools, and seeing how AI fits into real job functions across different industries. It’s the sort of hands-on content many young jobseekers keep asking for—no frills, no jargon, just what they need to get moving.

Majid Jafar, Crescent Petroleum’s CEO and Vice-Chairman of the Crescent Group, put it plainly, saying that AI is reshaping the future of work and that the programme aims to help young people compete and build better careers. Bassem Saad, who heads the Queen Rania Foundation and chairs Edraak, highlighted that AI has become a core career competency and that accessible education like this helps young Arabs navigate a fast-shifting job market.

The timing makes sense. With youth unemployment in MENA stubbornly hovering above 25%—the highest globally—and with around 78 million jobs expected to change by 2030, the need for future-ready skills is hardly a surprise. On the flip side, free Arabic-language platforms like Edraak are one of the few channels offering large-scale access to such training, and I reckon that’s what gives this programme a real edge.

Anyone who completes all four courses will get a certificate to signal their skill set, which may seem like a small thing but, well… I mean, for a lot of young jobseekers it’s one more way to break through the noise. The new AI specialisation also builds on the broader Career Compass Pathway, which continues to accept learners and offers career basics like CV writing, interview skills, and digital literacy. It’s all part of a collaboration between Edraak and Crescent Petroleum that’s been running since 2017.

Edraak itself has grown into one of the region’s most influential online learning platforms. It’s a non-profit set up by the Queen Rania Foundation back in 2014 and has now reached over 10 million learners, with around half a million users each week. Their model is straightforward: keep everything in Arabic, keep it free, and keep it relevant to the job market. It can be a bit of a faff for learners to find trustworthy, high-quality courses online, so platforms like this do fill a real gap.

Crescent Petroleum, meanwhile, brings more than 50 years of experience as the Middle East’s first private oil and gas operator, with an international footprint and a long-running interest in workforce development across the region. The company is also the largest shareholder in Dana Gas.

Together, the two organisations are doubling down on preparing young Arabs for the job market that’s taking shape right under their feet—one influenced by automation, shifting skills, and AI tools that weren’t even mainstream a few years ago. And if there's one thing I’ve learnt covering startups across MENA for Arageek, it’s that access to the right skills can make or break someone's future. This new push by Crescent Petroleum and Edraak feels like a step in the right direction, even if the pace of change can be, frankly, a little overwhelming—or should I say overwhemling.

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