Their Majesties King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan welcome the e-commerce giant Alibaba's Founder and Executive Chairman Mr. Jack Ma's brief visit to Jordan earlier today at the Al Husseinya Palace for lunch.

After a brief lunch and discussion Her Majesty and Mr. Jack Ma's paid visit to the EDRAAK new offices were they were welcomed by Edraak CEO Shireen Yacoub, and were briefed by the company’s team on its most recent work and its plans moving forward Mr. Ma's foundation. The Jack Ma Foundation (JMF) announced a first stage grant of three million USD to support the mission of the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development (QRF) and its work in education in Jordan, with a particular focus on Edraak, the free online platform for Arabic open educational resources (OERs) and the Queen Rania Teacher Academy (QRTA).

This step marks the beginning of a fruitful relationship between JMF and QRF, and demonstrates both Ma’s and Queen Rania’s passion for education and the mutual belief in the power of innovative methods and new technology to address global educational challenges.

The Foundation's General Secretary, Ms. Xiuhong Yu, recognized the challenges faced by young women, girls, refugees, and students in Jordan’s rural areas, expressing her hope that the grant will strengthen the foundation’s ability to improve education for these vulnerable groups.

“The vision and leadership of the Queen Rania Foundation to improve the quality of education for Jordan and the region through its world-class and innovative programs is truly inspiring,” she said. “In China, the Jack Ma Foundation is focused on improving the livelihood of rural communities through education and we look forward to learning from and sharing best practices with the Queen Rania Foundation on headmaster and teacher training.”


This comes at a pivotal time for the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where more than 15 million children are out of school due to armed conflict and displacement, and many lack access to quality education, an issue exacerbated by the region’s refugee crisis.

QRF CEO, Ms. Haifa Al-Attia, thanked JMF, noting that the grant will provide educational opportunities to learners in Jordan and across the Middle East, both through Edraak and QRTA.

“We are extremely grateful for the generous support of the Jack Ma Foundation, which has once again distinguished itself as an invaluable champion of education across the globe,” she said. “Through this grant, we will continue to not only deliver quality education to young Jordanians, but also to children across the Arab World through our digital platform Edraak.”

They later toured the new offices, met with a number of engineers from Google, who were on a visit from the U.S. They also stopped by Edraak’s studio, where school teachers were filming educational content for the K-12 program. The teachers and content creators explained to Ma the need for high quality open educational resources in Arabic, while stressing the potential that Edraak’s new platform has to revamp K-12 education in the region.

Queen Rania also accompanied Ma to the King Hussein Business Park, where he joined a group of 20 Jordanian venture capitalists, incubators, and enablers in a closed meeting to discuss the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Jordan. The meeting was followed by an open interactive Q&A session with 60 Jordanian startups and entrepreneurs.

While in Jordan, he also visited the Queen Rania Teachers Academy (QRTA), where CEO Haif Banayyan briefed him on different programs implemented by the academy.