Maharat PRO Learning online platform

Dr Hibah Shata:  I am a dentist from Saudi Arabia who graduated with honors from King Saud University in 1992, achieved my Masters degrees from University of London and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1996. I attained a diploma in buisness managment from the University of Dubai in 2007, and became a certified EFQM assessor in 2013.

As an enterpreuneur living in Dubai, UAE I founded and managed several medical and education centers over the last 20 years: Founded and managed Dr Hibah Shata Specialized Dental Clinic since 2001, Child Early Intervention Medical Center since 2008, Child Learning and Enrichment Medical Center established in 2010 and closed down in 2020, founded Maharat Learning Center in 2017 and Maharat Arabia Learning Center 2019 in Riyadh, KSA and established the first inclusion center in the International School of Creative Science in Dubai in 2019

Children and young adults with special needs and cognitive disorders face the following challenges:

1-Lack of individualized programs to support the Inclusion in schools, universities or at work

 2-Isolation and  fewer work opportunities 

3- Professionals working with them has limited behavioral managment skills and quality individualized programs

 Maharat Pro is a smart learning solution providing evidence based individualized programs, including behavioral intervention, vocational and life skills, to enable children and young adults with special needs to access and succeed in mainstream education, college and a career and reach their maximum potential to live successful and independent lives.

Maharat Pro provides professionals working with students with the tools, training and programs to support their professional career development and skills.

The platform supports parents with training, apps, books and videos to support their chidlren in both arabic and english.

Around 250 million children, or 43% of all children younger than 5 years, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at higher risk of not reaching their developmental potential due to stunting, poverty, and disadvantage. In 2016, it was estimated that globally 52.9 million children younger than 5 years experienced a developmental disability, such as sensory impairment, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorders, and 95% of them lived LMICs . Most of these children lack access to care. Convincing evidence shows that parents are able to learn skills to effectively promote their children’s development and positive behavior (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6859468/#:~:text=In%202016%2C%20it%20was%20estimated,children%20lack%20access%20to%20care.).

According to the World Health Organization approximately 11 percent of the UAE population has a disability (WHO 2002-2004 technical Appendix) * In United Arab Emirates, neuropsychiatric disorders are estimated to contribute to 19.9% of the global burden of disease (WHO, 2008). http://who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/technical_appendices.pdf

Our Maharat Pro solution is an online platform for professionals and parents including resources, guidance and training to support their children online with individualized evidence based programs. The ABA Master is the program platform that allow parents/professionals to recieve supervised programs, monitor student`s progress regularly, programs update based on data collection, analysis and AI system.

Our online platform is a hub for parents and professionals working with individuals with special needs from the age of 18 months -25 years where we provide clinical online assessment using International Standards, develop online individualized programs, provide professional training, parental training and resources to support  children  and young adults. Child's team is trained on the programs and online monitoring is delivered by highly specialised Board Certified Behavioral Analysts using Tele- Health.

The platform is also a complete solution for organizations any where who would like to implement evidence-based programs for special need students and manage with highest standards.

The platform has several solutions including HR Management System, Accounting System, Marketing and Event Managment, Quality Control, Health and Safety, Online Training Academy, Resources for parents, teachers, professionals and students, ABA Master is the Program platform to support the ABA programs development and case management, monitoring and tele- Health.

The project started in 2015 as Child-pro and has been active over the last 3 years, in 2019 the ABA Master, i-clinic and i-employee were launched and in 2020 i-education resource platform was launched.

To consilidate all platforms together ,Maharat- pro is developed to merge all solutions under one roof.

Our target are families and professionals working with individuals with cognitive, developmental, ADHD, ADD and Autism Spectrum Disorders age 18 month to 25 years of age. Our families can be anywhere around the globe.

Each individual shall have a psychological or psycho-educational report, a skill evaluation using International testing tools is implemented by Board Cerified Behavioral Analyst (BCBAA), then an individualized Intervention Program  accordingly  is developed, the team is trained through tele-health and data are entered regularly and monitored weekly with graphs to show progress and updated as necessary.

Students attending schools will also benefit from individualized education plans supporting their teachers and supervision and monitoring is provided to the student online.

Resources will enrich parents, professionals, teachers and students with the tools, trainings, videos, books and worksheets to support their programs.

The solution is accessable online from any device at any time, all child`s reports, schedules, resources and many other features to support the accessablity to students programs.

The solution will support families of students with special needs to access high quality education resources, support their inclusion at schools, universities and at work.

Outcomes: 

1. Incerease primary/gross or net enrolment rate (%) school children with disabilities.

2. Higher participation in tertiary education (%) of students with disabilities.

3. Increase employment rate in private and Government (%) special employees.

Impact:

1. Reduce illiteracy level of school children and college students with disabilities, including girls.

2. Increased engagement of community in supporting individuals with disabilities.

3.Inclusive community where members are aware of rights, dignity and equal opportunities

4. Special Individuals engaged in decision making

5.Reduction in the employment rate gap between disabled and non-disabled people

6.Happier, secured, safe and supported individuals.

My Story:

My daughter was diagnosed with Autism at 18 months old. There were no services that met her needs and young age, the waiting lists were long and most services only applied to children over the age of 3.So I established Child Early Intervention Medical Center to provide services to infants with special needs in 2008, in 2010 children were ready for inclusion but schools were not ready for them, so I established Child Learning and Enrichment Medical Center to support student inclusion in 2010 an alternative education model and worked on raising awareness towards the importance of early intervention and inclusion in 2016 the inclusion starategy of UAE was launched and I founded Maharat Learning Centre (MLC), which today provides educational support to special-needs children and youngsters from the ages of 6 to 25. 

As the number of children increased over the years we had to find external storage for our big data and our operation needed better managment, monitoring and data anaylsis. Child Pro was launched in 2015 to support our operation and when we decided to scale our model to Saudi Arabia Maharat Pro was the solution to consolidate all our online platforms under one platform.

Many countries are facing challenges when it comes to special need students inclusion in mainstream schools, universities and work, there is a global lack of highly skilled specialists working with children. Many parents can not find services where they live or it is very expensive. There are few evidence based programs that support building inclusion skills for studnets specially those with Autism.

My daughter is 15 years old today and attending mainstream school in grade 8 and this was only possible due to the hard work of many people in her life.

Maharat Pro is developed over the last 5 years to facilitate accessablity of parents to individualised quality programs through highly specialized and trained team and monitor their children progress and support parents from any where with the training needed and resources so their children are not left victims to illitracy and unemployment when they grow up, this will also  help solve a golbal problem that is increasing over time, the idea is emerged to solve our big data and support research development in the region qne to engage more specialists BCBA online so services are available 24/7 at all times in different zones. 

As an enterpreneur for the last 20 years working tirlessly to create new futures for my daughter and many other special children and to open new opportunities to support their inclusion in the community through education, raising awareness, advocacy, training provision and customization.

Our team is large and highly qualified and continiously trained with 12  years of experience in provision of individualized behavioral programs

Our system had been operational over the last 5 years, tested and improved over time and many additional features had been created for better operation and today our new solution will allow us to franchise our model and be able to access new markets

Our people are our investment, skills are developed through structured professional training and career development plans. Our online platform will provide cost effective solution and standardize our professionals skills

We take data on everything the student learn and we monitor progress and update our programs accordingly.

Parents, teachers and professionals are all involved and engaged in the child`s or adult program to insure alignment of the entire team.

We organize annual walks, conferences, workshops to engage the community of professionals and teachers and update our teams with the latest research, tools and technology to support our children.

We as a smart center use technology for learning, communication ,teaching, managment, training, marketing and others.

We had built a platform the support our operation, employees, clients, community and clinical professionals.

Our system had been tested successfuly during the COVID 19 lockdown.

1.At the begining of launching the system many people resisted the change to move from manual system to a digital online system, a challenge  many people faced and took them time to transform and adapt to the new processes, this was resolved through stopping manual operations completely and direct everyone to use the system and shift to online and fix problems as they emerge.

 2.The heavy content: photos, videos and large data affected system speed and it was difficult to connect at all times by everyone The  continious evolution of technology and the emergence of AI, had forced us to change our server to a much faster and more secure platform, this transition was not easy certain operations needed to stop until the transition was completed, so we decided to do it during the summer of 2019 over one week and backed up all our data, it also meant that our IT team had to work continiously to support the system fast transition to the new platform.

3.Parents were comfortable using communication via emails, we shifted them to use the system by launching our mobile App and enrich it with information and shift all communication through the app.

As a child I was brought up in a very conservative society at a different time when women were expected to lead their families and teach their children, without any expectations to participate in politics, economy or be socially impactful,  I was lucky as I studied dentistry and graduated at the top of my class, I was one of the two first Saudi women who had achieved the Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons 1st part from Glasgow. Worked for the Ministry of Health and the Armed Forces Hospital in the Maxillofacial Surgery Department at the time where women rarly worked in surgery,  this had tought me many skills  from team work, decision making and accountability. When I returned back to Saudi Arabia, I worked for the National Guards Hospital and established the Medically compromised patient clinic to support the patients with chronic disorders  who needed urgent care.

When my daughter was diagnosed with Autism for the last 13 years all my work was dedicated to develop quality in the field of special education and to support her and children like her to access mainstream schools, universities and get an opportunity to lead an independant and a succesful life.

NA

Maharat Pro is the first online platform to support the online behavioral intervention, education, vocational training and the inclusion of individuals with special needs. 

Once launched to public, children from anywhere will be able to access quality programs at reasonable price, parents will recieve guidance and training, teachers will feel better supported  and new opportunities are open for employment from anywhere to join the team and become a therapist registered in the American Board for Beahvioral Therapists.

The platform will support employees with policies, processes and job sepcific trainingh, families and students will access resources and online trainings and professionals can recieve their BCBA hours of training to support their career development.

Families in underserviced areas or where cost is very high will be able to provide their children with  services under supervision of highly qualified team.

The ABA Master platform for individualized programs will provide quality control and contribute to the development of research in the region

The Platform will also support franchisee to establish centers any where under our supervision

Maharat Pro is unique in its content and the scope of its cover and the variety of special needs programs that meet a different needs for different age group

ieducation.maharatpro.com

elearning.maharatpro.com

https://youtu.be/JrDOmtS7oXI

Create an Inclusive Cohesive Society

• People with disabilities had limited access to quality inclusive education with specialized services available in mainstream schools/ colleges for many years.
• Seldom accessing tertiary education or get to work and receive accommodations in an environment that is open, inclusive, and accessible.
• Families of children and young adults faces challenges with integration, behavior management and inclusion in the community.
• Professionals working with people with disabilities lack behavioral management skills and evidenced based programs to support individualized needs of students and learners.
• Lack of community awareness towards the rights of individuals with disabilities to education and decent living

Input:

1. Development of skilled behavioral therapists 

2. Provision of individualized ABA programs for school age children

3- Training of teaching staff and specialist staff (special educators) and parents

4. Development of prevocational and vocational programs

 5.Development of Online Training and Resource Platform

Output

1.Number of RBT trained staff

2- Number of children benefiting from ABA programs and students accepted in mainstream schools every year

3. Number of teaching staff trained in inclusive practice and parents trained 

4.Number of students enrolled in vocational programs and accessing colleges and universities

5.Number of employees hired in private and government sector and number of entrepreneurs from Special people

 6.Number of users and individuals trained online

 Outcome

1.  Primary/ gross or net enrolment rate (%) school children with disabilities

2.Primary completion rate (%) school children with disabilities

3.Secondary gross or net enrolment rate (%) school children with disabilities

4.Participation in tertiary education (%) of students with disabilities

5. Employment rate in private and Government %special employees

 Impact:

1.Literacy level of school children and college students with disabilities, including girls

2.Positive attitude of teachers towards including school children and college students with disabilities

3.Positive attitude of school children and students with disabilities receive necessary supports to facilitate effective education

4.Increased engagement of community in supporting individuals with disabilities 

5.Inclusive community where members are aware of rights, dignity and equal opportunities

 6. Special Individuals engaged in decision making

 7.Reduction in the employment rate gap between disabled and non-disabled people

 8.Happier, secured, safe and supported individuals.

Currently we serve 95 students,( before COVID 19)  this could increase next year to 200 students and more then 1000 students in 5 years

Healing after COVID 19 by October 2020 and scale our model creating franchise in Saudi Arabia in 10 locations supported by the Chamber of Commerce SME program.

This will provide 20 students in each location with services in the first year as this is new model it is important to build capacity before accepting new students, within 5 years we hope each center will be able to support up to 120 students.

Our impact goals include:

1-Build capacity in the field of behavioral therapy to support students globally through professional training, exams, monitoring and supervision this is achieved through our structured training available online to support our employees, franchisee, partners and parents.

2- Assist students access manistream schools, colleges and universities through providing them with individualized ABA programs, vocational programs and life skills programs and support them with supervision and training of their teachers.

3- Prepare young adults  for job market through pre vocational and vocational training and build partnership with organizations for job placement and on the job support.

4- build the technical infra structure to support online access to services,  resources, and training this is achieved through Maharat Pro platform 

5- Raise public awareness towards the importance of early intervention and inclusion through  campaigns and advocacy, conferences, workshops, events and exhibitions and partnership and engaging the entire community

6-Scale to new locations through partnerships and franchising the model. 

7- Enrich research development in the region through analysis of data and implementation of AI to support the machine learning.

The main challeges that we face are the following:

1- Healing from the COVID 19 and standing back to a healthy situation so we can scale our model and launch our franchise  and overcome our financial distress from the current situation

2-Building and funding our franchise model  with experts in the field

3- Funding the hiring of additional technical staff needed to design and build the Maharat Platform new interface to consiledate all our current and previous solutions and additional quality control trainer to support our new franchisee and the additional Marketing, HR and Accounting staff to support new expansion

4-Finding highly qualified teachers, special education service providers and psychologist to support our project in any new location 

5- Building the monitoring and quality control team to oversee the new franchisee

6- Monitoring and standardization of all our processes, policies, systems and operations.

7- Disruptive technology challenging existing traditional special need centers can create resistance and opportunities for partnerships

8- Accepting students in mainstream private schools and allowing external support to accompany the students

9- Governement regulations  and lack of inclusion strategies and rigid old policies that should accomodate the new needs

10- Public awareness and acceptance of inclusion of special need students in mainstream educaion

1- Healing from the COVID 19: installing the sanitization gate, implementing high infection control standards, infection control training and reassuring clients to recieve services. Provision of online options, home visits and center based therapy to support  school readiness skills.

Offer cost effective solutions as Mom is my therapist, and Sindibad Remote Supervision and our TELE HEALTH Model

2-Benefit from SME support for funding the model development and the marketing strategy

3-Benefiting from Funding opportunities and Prized to hire additional technical and operation staff 

4- The Core Leadership Team to support the any new organization during the startup phase.  Utilize professionals  to visit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for regular training and supervision, support the project with ongoing training and online system to help train Saudi and local recruited personnel. 

Attract Saudi and local talent returning from post graduate programs in the USA, UK and other countries.

5- Building the monitoring and quality control utilizing key staff from our centers in UAE, and our affiliates in USA, Europe and KSA for training and supervision.

6- To standardize our operation, all policies, processes and forms are automated and digitized and avialable on Maharat Pro

7- Allow professional development opportunities for the community to overcome resistance. Encourage areas of specialization (certification) 

8- Reward schools for accepting students through training opportunities and support

9- Partnering with Governement institutes to build necessary inclusion strategies and new policies

10- Increase public awareness and acceptance through community engagment, social media, advocacy and show case successful cases

We are currently in partnership with 

1-Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education and Saudi Cultural Attache in UAE to support scholars in UAE

2- Dubai Electricity and Water Authority DEWA,  and DEWA Academy to support academy special need students and employees with special needs

3-Dubai Health Authority - early intervention program to support children from 18 months-6 years

4- Knowledge and Human Development Authority -KHDA as an accredited training institute providing certified accredited trainings.

5-Community Development Authority regulatory body over see our operation and memebers in the Human Right Advocacy team

6-Dubai Police- ISAAD program to support Police families with special children

7-Zayed Higher Organization supporting their training and professional development

8-Amity University supporting their undergraduate program with practicum in Maharat

9-American University of the Emirates supporting undergraduate students and special need students

10-Tech-resource center of Marine, USA supporting technology development at Maharat

11-Habaybuna.com for parental arabic resources

12-University of Missouri, St. Louis - USA  one of the state’s largest preparers of educators for regular classroom and special education.  BCBA Program certificate and online BCBA master’s program. 

13- STEMA for STEAM education  program for young adults 

14- BabNoor Arabic online for Augmentive Communication and Proloqo 2 go for English program and ASDAN Life Skills for Prevocational and Vocational Programs 

15-German Emirate Club and Aviation Professional Club for members to benefit from our services

16- King Faisal Specialist Hospital- Autism Research Center

17- King Salman Center for Disability Research

18- Private schools in UAE and Saudi Arabia

Our model is simple: Clients are referred through website or from a partner Organization, school or clinic and are introduced to our services, sign the agreement, pay the deposit online or through bank transferand become a user of our system with security passward, receive the service . We offer them training and support their children and young adults with all the support they need. If they are funded we send invoices to funding organization.

Revenue model

Our revenue model is Fee-for-service; we charge our customers for the type of and times the services are provided. This is simple we invoice our clients and pay our employees and suppliers.

Our clients are families who elect to choose any of our offers or packages, or pay monthly invoices per hours of service; we build long term relationship that last in average 3-5 years. and an average spend of 35,000 US dollars per year

Cost model

The cost model is simple and based mainly on manpower cost. Pricing is made on the hourly cost of the professional providing the service; this would include direct cost and the percentage of indirect cost.

We offer packages, hourly service and special promotion during low seasons or when demand decline. We also offer our services internationally and client can hire us to service them in their home country, we also have a remote supervision offer to cater those who are living outside UAE.

Revenue streams

Direct 1:1 services

Training and Professional Development

Our services depend on professional referrals, sales to business and Government is established through 1:1 meeting by the sales and marketing teams.  Our team establishes contacts during exhibitions and events and meetings then follow up with proposals until the agreements are finalized. For Business to clients we participate in public events and utilize our website and social media for marketing.

Our Sales Assumption is based to Bottom UP Volume Approach that is driven by

• The number of referrals from schools, medical professionals and inquiries made by families finding us on the social media.
• Conversion rate by our clinicians and client relation officers
• Number of transactions (hours)
• Recurrent sales
• The assumptions are made based on our current capacity, the number of schools signing contracts and the number of guaranteed funded students by the Government.
• The plan is to enhance our image and access all schools and medical centers for referrals. We participate in large exhibitions as speakers or exhibitors, we also organize our events and offer coffee mornings to partners. Our budget is limited and is utilized for licenses, social media advertisement, exhibitions and events.

Our top down assumption is to achieve 6-10% of SAM.

We did not raise funds yet for Maharat Pro, 

Our buisness is operational over the last 3 years and funding is generated through direct sales, our revenue in 2019 was 2 Million US dollars and profit 8% . We also won Cartier Women Initiative Award and recieved 100,000 US Dollars grant to support our buisness development and scalability.

We are hoping to raise the amount of 350,000 US dollar to fund the following:

1- Additional Manpower: hiring of technical support ( Annual Salary 35,000 US Dollars, US Dollars, Marketing Personnel 35,000 US Dollars and Quality Assurance officer 35,000 US Dollars, Franchise Coordinator 35,000 US Dollars, HR personnel 25,000, accounting personnel 35,000) total 200,000 US Dollars

2-Marketing Budget 30,000 

3-Artificial Intellegence, website development and hosting cost 80,000 US Dollars 

4-Franchise Consultant Fees 20,000 US Dollars

5- Contingency costs 20,000 US Dollars

Total 350,000 US Dollars

Estimated Cost for 2020 ($)

Direct Cost 1,902,871.70 ( Salaries of 60 therapists)

Indirect Cost    363,168.99 (Adminstrative and Management Salaries)

Operational Cost 1,445,700.00 ( Rent, Utilities, Liabilities etc.)

Total Cost 3,711,740.69 

Applying for Elevate Prize will us assist with the following:

1- Brand exposure and raise awareness towards our cause and support the inclusion of special need students in mainstream schools and universities

2-Building and funding our franchise model  with experts in the field

3- Funding the hiring of additional technical staff needed to design and build the Maharat Platform new interface to consiledate all our current and previous solutions and additional quality control trainer to support our new franchisee and the additional Marketing, HR and Accounting staff to support new expansion

4-Coaching the monitoring and quality control team to oversee the new franchisees with the new needed franchise managment skills

5-Winning the Elevate Prize will inspire many families and professionals in the field to support their children and help them access services even in remote underserviced areas with cost effective services

The above partnership goals will assist to develop a sound business structure for scaling our model and franchising in the region and draft legal documents, help with building sound marketing strategies and support our quality control, audits and monitoring our performance and continuous improvement strategies