Storyland won the ESA-HEC Entrepreneur Prize 2026 on Friday, beating 11 other finalists in the seventh edition of the competition. The award was presented at ESA Business School in Beirut after jury deliberations that included Smart ESA Director Karl Gedda.
The prize is organized by L'Orient-Le Jour and Smart ESA in partnership with the French Embassy, French Tech Beirut, HEC Paris Alumni Lebanon, Air France and Light FM. Its top reward is six months of fully funded incubation at the HEC Paris Incubator at Station F in Paris, the world's largest startup campus.
How the App Works
Storyland: Family Stories uses several artificial intelligence models to generate personalized illustrated stories that mix narration with still images. According to founder Malek Fatte, the app combines ChatGPT from OpenAI for text, Google's Gemini Nano Banana model for illustrations, and the Chinese model MiniMax for voice cloning and audio narration.
Its standout feature clones a user's voice in seconds and uses it to narrate stories. The app can also reproduce multiple Arabic dialects. L'Orient-Le Jour tested the app and confirmed that the voice-cloning feature is fully operational.
The People Behind Storyland
The company was founded by Malek Fatte with the support of Lebanese-British actress Razane Jammal, who is both an investor and the startup's brand ambassador. A second investor, Lamice Joujou, founder of the Lebanese daycare chain Dent de Lait, oversees the company's business-to-business distribution.
Built for Lebanon's Diaspora
The app is already available on iOS and Android and can be downloaded free, with a paid subscription that unlocks premium features such as longer stories. It targets both families living in Lebanon and relatives abroad, a nod to the country's large diaspora.
Children can listen to personalized illustrated stories narrated in the voice of a parent, grandparent, or another family member, even when that relative lives in another country.
What the Prize Unlocks
The six months of funded incubation at Station F will help Storyland expand into the childcare sector with products for nurseries and daycare centers. One planned feature would let parents receive illustrated summaries of their child's day, highlighting activities and milestones.
Access to HEC Paris' entrepreneurial network and the wider French Tech ecosystem comes with the program. Before the pitches, L'Orient-Le Jour Executive Director Rima Abdul Malak noted that the contest went ahead despite the difficult security situation of recent months amid the war between Israel and Hezbollah. ESA Director General Maxence Duault also signed a memorandum of understanding with HEC Alumni Lebanon, chaired by Elsa Aoun, to strengthen mentoring.
The Other Finalists
The Audience Choice Award went to United Network of Global Youth, which wants to build an international network where university students design and validate social impact projects through peer-endorsed certifications rather than institutional committees.
Most of the other finalists focused on AI and digital tools. Bariq showed an AI media monitoring platform for newsrooms and think tanks, Al-Muwaten introduced a news platform for Lebanon's startup ecosystem, Hakkemni presented a service connecting patients with doctors, and Rcover-ai demonstrated an assistant that automates report writing for mental health professionals. Coollab.ai lets entrepreneurs simulate running a company with an AI team, Seyerne turns expert knowledge into interactive AI mentors, and Neuracare monitors patients' responses to treatment in real time.
Two finalists stood apart from the AI theme. VerdePlastix converts invasive algae into bioplastic, and Argentum recovers silver from used X-ray films.
