Original to:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/05/wireless-in-gaza-the-code-school-bringing-hope-to-the-strip
The Upside
Technology
Wireless in Gaza: the whizz-kids making code not war
Gaza City academy hopes its hi-tech business model will be immune to
physical barriers to trade
By Oliver Holmes and Hazem Balousha in Gaza City
Thu 5 Jul 2018
It’s a scene straight from a Silicon Valley startup.
Hot-desking twentysomethings type code into laptops covered with
stickers. Retro Pac-Man graffiti and motivational slogans like “DO EPIC
THINGS” adorn the walls. Bookshelves are filled with the tech classics:
The Facebook Effect and The Founder’s Dilemmas. Wifi routers hang
overhead, as do Edison bulbs, emitting more style than actual light.
But this is not the San Francisco Bay Area. No electric cars quietly
whirr by.
Instead, this is Gaza, with its cracked streets and checkpoints manned
by militants. On the perimeter of this impoverished coastal enclave are
Israel and Egypt, countries that have blockaded this tiny slice of land
for years.
Tight restrictions on the movement of goods and, vitally, people, have
been the death of much industry here. But Gaza’s first coding academy
hopes its hi-tech business model — which operates in the virtual rather
than real world — will be somewhat immune to physical barriers to trade.
“That’s the reason we started this. It ignores boundaries,” says
31-year-old Ghada Ibrahim, who was in the first class of coders, which
started a year ago. “The blockade is a huge factor. It’s a reason why we
have a lot of people who have come to sign up.”
With funding from international charities such as Mercy Corps and
significant tech world players such as Google, the academy provides two
basic requirements its students need for a freelance career developing
websites and apps: internet and electricity.
In Gaza, that means paying for a generator to supply 10 hours of laptop
juice a day.
“We do something that no one can cut off,” Ibrahim says, then stops
herself mid-sentence and pauses for a few seconds. She adds, smiling:
“Although maybe they can.” Israel provides Gaza’s internet, and as yet
has never cut it off.
Sixteen students (half female as a rule) enrolled in the first class,
which had international support from Founders & Coders, a UK-based
nonprofit providing free coding lessons. Ibrahim recalls a slightly
haphazard programme: eight hours a day where students were expected to
self-learn coding and present a weekly project. Of the original 16, only
nine graduated.
“We had a lot of problems,” she says. “It was supposed to be one month.
It went on for six months.” She says the students, several of whom had
degrees in information technology, struggled to adapt to self-taught
techniques following a lifetime of parrot-fashion schooling: they
continually looked to the teacher when stuck.
“We all grew up to be taught by someone. It’s never self-learning,” she
says. To combat this, the class implemented what Ibrahim calls the
20/20/20 rule. When encountering an issue, students spend 20 minutes
trying to figure it out online, then 20 minutes with the help of another
classmate. The final 20 minutes are with the help of a mentor.
It works. The class after Ibrahim’s had 12 graduates, and the one after
that had 14. The fourth cohort is currently ongoing with all 16, she
says, looking into the classroom, “but it’s only the third week.” And
while the first classes had support from professional coders, all the
mentors are now former students. It’s self-perpetuating.
Moamin Salamah Abu Ewaida, 34, is the engagement and development manager
at tech hub and co-working space Gaza Sky Geeks, which launched the
coding academy last year. What is essential, he says, is that freelance
business skills are also taught at the academy.
Each student is trained how to pitch to international clients and use
job-finding websites such as Upwork, a global freelancing platform. For
real-world practice during the course, local businesses and charities
are offered pro bono web development work.
And, crucially, Gaza Sky Geeks helps its graduates get paid, in a place
that many financial institutions avoid for fears of money laundering,
not to mention the fact that its de facto government has been on a US
“foreign terrorist” blacklist since 1997.
Gaza Sky Geeks has partnered with banks and online payment systems that
can verify its credentials. Graduates have already started developing
websites for international clients in Europe.
“Our end goal is to use tech as a gateway. This area [Gaza], it could be
the next Berlin or Dublin,” says Abu Ewaida. He warns against dismissing
that dream, and says the conditions are there for a thriving freelance
coding community to develop: “We have the talent. And the price for us
is a little bit less than others. We can deliver.”
And, regardless, “This place can give more than opportunity,” he says.
“It can give hope. It’s emotional more than professional.”
................................
This article is part of a series on possible solutions to some of the
world’s most stubborn problems. What else should we cover? Email us at
[email protected]
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