Farah Mahdi Khudair

Iraq

“Sanad!” Farah sighs as she tells the story behind the platform’s name, her head crowded with dozens of points
to share.

“I am an Iraqi girl. I have been living alone with my elderly parents in Amman for five years,” Farah begins. “We fight like many Iraqi families to collect threads of hope. My father needs medical attention, often in the middle of the night. I personally needed a companion to walk the hard and abandoned road to the right doctor. I also needed a supporter during my university studies, but I found him only one month before I finished my graduation project!

I am a student in computer science. I insisted that my first steps into the labour market be productive and beneficial.
For a girl who bears a big responsibility from a young age,
I swore to be the supporter my father needed.

I decided to develop a plan for a web platform that connects patients with doctors in Amman. It is a plan that facilitates access to specialized doctors at any time of day without the need to disturb the doctor by calling, and without the need for the patient or elderly person to leave their home”.

Despite the many skills she acquired in her university studies, she needed other skills to develop a mobile application, especially Android, so her project could be realised. That is because she wanted to implement the project herself.

On a page in one of her notebooks, Farah wrote down “One Million Arab Coders” when she heard about it from a colleague. She decided to search for an Android course and finished it within one week.

She asks: “Is there someone faster than me?”. By God, it is a wonderful question! I became a developer in one week and finished the application myself”.

On Farah’s desk, there is a collection of memorial photos of her accepting many awards in Jordan for her project “Sanad” meaning supporter. At the center of the table is her plan to develop and implement her project, for which she also won a prize of $50,000 in the digital innovation competition from the One Million Arab Coders initiative. She looks at her plan while laughing and says: “this initiative is my ‘sanad’!”