Hawzah News Agency – All parents want their children to develop values and qualities that are akin to their own. The same is true for Muslim parents, but the fact is that most are experiencing difficulty finding high-quality Islamic content for their children.

Sinan Ismail, who has been creating educational content for kids for nearly ten years, is well aware of this. He has published Didi & Friends and Omar & Hana as the CEO and co-founder of Digital Durian.

Didi & Friends has had over 5 billion views on YouTube since its debut in 2014, having sold over 800 different types of merchandise, and has organized carnivals and concerts for Malaysian families.

Now, the 13-year-old entrepreneur is moving on to larger and more diverse ventures. He now wants to turn his tech startup, Durioo, into a Muslim-friendly counterpart of Disney and Netflix.

Durioo’s mission is to reach out to a market of 100 million Muslim households with children under the age of 12. They hope to impart Islamic principles and qualities in the 400 million Muslim kids throughout the world by developing, co-producing, and licensing high-quality Islamic essence cartoons and shows.

Sinan aims to release new cartoons that are tailored for children aged 4 and up.

Little Ammar is a pre-school animated series that will premiere on the YouTube streaming platform in 2022. He described the show as being comparable to the Netflix sing-along series CoComelon, except for Muslim children. Little Ammar has a rabbit as a pet and twin sisters, and the story is based on Islamic beliefs. Each episode will last 3 minutes, with audio produced in Malay, English, and Arabic in-house. Dubbing in Uzbek, Russian, Tajik, Urdu, Mandarin, and French has also been agreed upon by international partners.

Mina & Milna is the second show to be released, and it is aimed at girls aged 5 to 9, a demographic that has received little attention in Islamic-themed cartoons. The show follows Ammar’s twin sisters, who have quite different personalities, as they go about their everyday lives and learn that their lives are better together, despite their differences.

Currently, the Durioo team comprises of 38 employees that formerly worked for Digital Durian. Sinan intends to expand the team to 500-600 individuals in the next 10-15 years, as well as collaborate with other animation studios on co-productions and build their own line of digital games and entertainment.