The problem
Syrian households live around blackouts: the grid fails for hours daily, diesel generators are expensive to run, and conventional washing machines — power-hungry and thirsty — sit idle exactly when families need them most.
How it works
Damascus engineering student Yaman Abou Jeib, raised tinkering in science workshops and later a partner in his father’s solar firm, built Glean: a washing machine engineered to run on solar power, using 60% less electricity than regular household appliances and less water. The prototype made him the first Syrian to win Qatar’s Stars of Science show, and landed him on MIT Technology Review’s 35 Arab Innovators Under 35 list.
Pain points
Energy poverty stacked on water scarcity: every laundry cycle competes with lighting, refrigeration, and phone charging for the same thin supply of power.
Business model
The plan was classic hardware: manufacture the machine and sell it through retail and project channels, starting with off-grid households. It never executed — the concept stayed at prototype plus investor conversations.
Challenges
This is a paper-stage idea: no factory, no distribution, no shipped units. Hardware needs patient capital and a manufacturing partner, and a lone inventor — however decorated — could not bridge that gap from Damascus in wartime.
Funding
- Raised: none — concept stage, no funding rounds reported.
- Valuation: none.
Latest — February 2017
In February 2017 Abou Jeib was reported to be in negotiations with investors in Saudi Arabia and Europe over production and distribution of the machine — the furthest the concept ever publicly travelled toward market.