Startup Spotlight: UAE-Based MyUniPath Helps MENA Students Choose The Right Universities To Enrol In By helping students figure out the "right" program, as well as how to pay for it, MyUniPath is helping students find the universities that best suit their requirements.
By Aalia Mehreen Ahmed Edited by Aalia Ahmed
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This article is part of an ongoing series covering startups that have been a part of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF) accelerator program.
While there are plenty of factors that lead a student towards choosing a particular university, there are two that are perhaps more important than the rest: figuring out the "right" program, as well as how to pay for it. And it is precisely with a mission to aid such decisions that Dubai-based startup MyUniPath was set up by Khaled Arwani in 2021.
"The main problem we are solving is helping students find the best universities, and offering payment plans that make tuition more affordable," says Arwani, who is also the CEO of the startup. "MyUniPath streamlines applications for students applying to universities worldwide. We're also starting to offer interest-free payment plans for university fees, making it much more affordable to pay for tuition."
If you've experienced having to apply to different universities all at once, chances are you're well aware of the mundanity of filling out an application form for every single one of them. With MyUniPath's goal to provide a "centralized cross-regional admissions online platform," this bottleneck effectively gets negated. "Our free skill assessment, which is our program matching tool, also offers students the opportunity to learn more about themselves," adds Arwani. "This helps the student find the right program to study at the right university."
Source: MyUniPath
The steps involved in this process include registering on the MyUniPath platform and submitting all application-related details, following which a student can browse through various universities and their programs. Upon finding a suitable option, the student can then apply to a given university with a single click. "We receive a placement fee for each enrolled student that applies through our platform," explains Arwani, when asked how the startup itself earns revenue through this model.
But for the students who may find it daunting to skim through so many options on their own, MyUniPath also offers advisory services. With a team of multilingual education experts on board, the platform offers free application to any five universities of a student's choice upon the booking of a single advisory session. "In regards to traction, so far, we have more than 2,000 students, and over 350 university partners from around the world," adds the founder. "Our initial customers came through referrals, but social media marketing has attracted way more students to our platform today."
Arwani credits such results partly to the UAE's startup-friendly environment, which his enterprise has been able to especially take advantage of with its participation in the MBRIF accelerator program. "It's great to be part of such a thriving ecosystem with great peers, and to see many successful stories around this definitely motivates us to work hard to achieve our goals," says Arwani. "MBRIF is a prominent program that has a track record of backing startups and helping them scale. We feel splendid to be a part of this program and are looking forward to the support they offer."
Moving forward, Arwani hopes to stay atop the many trends that continue to shape the education sector. "Innovation is key to success in a world where there is so much transformation happening particularly in education," he says. "We now aim to assist over one million students in finding the best path to higher education in the next five years."
