Yasmin Helal – Egyptian Entrepreneur

In 2011, Yasmin Helal made the switch from a highly decorated professional basketball player for the Egyptian national team and Gezira to entrepreneurship. She found that there was a growing need to help underprivileged children get an education. Eventually, Helal founded Educate-Me, which is a organization that has helped hundreds of children go to school.

Helal has a biomedical engineering degree from Cairo University. Right after school, she pursued a job in telecoms but eventually left to work with Omar Samra and his company Wild Guanabana. While there she helped other entrepreneurs in Egypt with education and voluntourism initiatives.

She received a ton of recognition for founding Educate-Me, which is a great place for children to assert control over what they learn. In fact, her program doesn’t use standardized tests or memorization but focuses on giving support to children to choose what they learn and achieve, from starting a business to being responsible in their community. In 2016, Helal was named one of the 100 most influential young Arabs under 40 years old by Arabian Business.

The feminine name Yasmin is taken from the Persian word yasmeen that means “jasmine”. Currently, the name it is used throughout the English-speaking world as a variant of the name Jasmine, which is taken from the English word for the fragrant flowers that come from a climbing plant used to make perfumes. There are many notable people with the name, from Yasmin Abbasey a Pakistani judge to Yasmin Le Bon a British Iranian fashion model.