Tapping into the potential of Palestinian youth

Hi, friends! 👋

For those of you who’ve been with us from the beginning, you might remember one of our first deep dives into the founding story of TAP, a company tackling youth unemployment in Palestine.

It’s a company I have immense respect for, so when TAP announced a $1M funding round at the start of the year – to scale across Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon, and launch a next-gen AI-powered job-hunting platform – I knew it was time to check in.

Founded in 2018 by Jafar Shunnar and Christian Vezjak, TAP started as a mission to create jobs in Palestine. It ran four-month training programs in software development, business development, and digital marketing, connecting graduates with remote work opportunities in global tech companies.

Then October 7th changed everything. Hiring froze and unemployment in Gaza and the West Bank skyrocketed. But TAP didn’t pull back – it automated more of its hiring processes, shifted from manual matchmaking to AI-driven job search tools, and expanded into Jordan and Lebanon ahead of schedule to keep momentum going.

Now, TAP is evolving into a scalable SaaS platform, moving beyond one-off hiring fees to build a long-term engine for job creation at scale.

For this week’s deep-dive, I sat down with TAP co-founder and CTO, Jafar Shunnar, to go deep on the company’s pivot, the realities of scaling a company in the face of relentless adversity, and what’s next as it scales its impact.

In our interview, we cover:

• 🇵🇸 Why job creation is so important for youth in Palestine

• 📈 TAP’s transformation from manual job placement to AI-driven talent acceleration

• 💸 Sustaining financial viability without compromising impact

• 💼 Whether the trend of MENA companies hiring Palestinian talent continue

• 🌍 The realities of scaling a company in the face of relentless adversity

• 🚀 What the future of work will look like for underserved youth in MENA

  Read online 📖

Actionable insights 🧠 🛠️

If you only have a few minutes to spare, here’s what investors, operators, and founders should know about TAP’s strategy for scaling job creation in MENA.

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Okay, let’s dig into it 👇

What motivated your commitment to solving the challenge of job creation for youth in Palestine?

We, as Palestinians, feel a deep sense of mission – not just for ourselves but also for our society. Especially for those of us who have had the opportunity to study abroad and access opportunities that others might not, we carry a responsibility to give back and support our people.

I’ve spent most of my life in Palestine – I studied in Palestinian high schools before getting the chance to study abroad, which completely transformed my education, my network, and ultimately my career. Later, I pursued a master’s degree, which pushed me even further, and I got to see firsthand how access to education and opportunities can change lives.

For me, I set a personal goal to create impact in that same way. And when you look at Palestine, job creation is one of the most meaningful ways to make a difference. The most important thing is keeping people in their land, with their families and communities, while giving them the means to build a good life and a decent career. That’s what drew me to all of this.

In 2023, TAP created between 30 and 40 remote jobs. By 2024, that number more than doubled, surpassing 100. With a target of 1,000 jobs for 2025, how do you plan to achieve this, and how has the platform evolved to support such scale?

In the past few years, we've been operating in what I’d call a pilot mode – essentially breaking down and understanding how job creation works from the ground up.

We’ve worked closely with youth, engaging with them on a deep, personal level to understand their needs – both in technical skills and soft skills. At the same time, we’ve been working with companies, getting insight into their hiring challenges, especially when it comes to remote hiring in Palestine. Through this process, we’ve successfully created a strong number of jobs, and now we’re channeling everything we’ve learned into a scalable platform.

Previously, our process was highly manual – we reached out to companies directly, bringing them on board to hire our graduates. That approach, while effective in the early stages, wasn’t scalable or cost-efficient.

Now, we’re flipping the model. Instead of us doing all the outreach, we’re empowering job seekers to proactively find opportunities themselves. It’s the classic teach a person to fish approach rather than just giving them a fish every day.

You began developing an AI-driven job creation platform in early 2024. Can you break down exactly how it works and the role AI plays in the process?

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