Goory AL Hamed
Computer Engineer, Kurdistan Iraq
“For as long as I can remember, I wanted to invent something. Coding was similar to inventing something, in my opinion. I learned to code from the Internet without any teacher. The first thing that motivated me to learn was when I watched a video about designing password protected forms. I was impressed and wanted to learn more about this brilliant science.”
“I built a program for buying and selling for a small shop using VBA Access. My brother owned a shop and he needed to organize his accounts to facilitate his work, so that motivated me to design this program. I had a little background when I started my Computer Engineering degree in Syria. I was in my fourth year, but I didn’t complete because of the war. I had to flee to Kurdistan.”
“It was very hard to leave Damascus, the city I love most, and leave my studying and all the people whom I love. When I came to Kurdistan, there was no place to go except the camp. Even this place wasn’t available for my family. No one knows what it means live in a tent except refugee. It is a long and hard story.”
“One day the Re:Coded team came to our camp and told us about their program. Re:Coded is a humanitarian program targets the bright refugees youth and trains them to be world-class developers. I was very excited and I didn’t hesitate to sign up. I wanted to work in my field and I was accepted to their first class.”
Re:Coded is an immersive English language and computer coding boot camp, and provides a path toward previously unavailable stable employment for Syrian refugees and internally displaced youth in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and is supported by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “This project is borne out of the passionate belief that every person, regardless of his or her circumstances, deserves the opportunity to gain dignified employment,” said project founder and director Alexandra Clare, a research scientist at the NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, through which the project is administered. Fellows complete eight weeks of English training, followed by six months of a coding boot camp and are subsequently linked to employment.
“At Re:Coded, I’m learning Ruby, HTML, CSS, JS, SQL, and Rails. It’s full stack web development. I’m excited about learning how to build a platform, building educational games for kids, and building database programs. I hope I can achieve my dreams in programming field and leave a footprint in life by doing something useful. My dream is to build an educational platform for coding English, accounting and math.”
“I love coding because it makes life easier and more fun. It is like magic. When I build something successful, I feel clever and special because building a program is not easy at all. I need to be logical and have a lot of patience. I overcome challenges by working hard and not losing the hope. I faced a lot of challenges in my life, but I always believe work hard and love what you do to get good results.”
