Najeh El Helwani

Lebanon

At the young age of 15, Najeh El Helwani talks about success and failure, loss and determination.

He also talks about his own work and the paradigm shift in his life from a boy with no destination or any sort of plan, to a young man who is firm and determined to walk toward his future with confidence.

Before he turned 14, Najeh started his first lesson in coding, which astonished him and made him feel empowered to take control.

In the classrooms of the One Million Arab Coders initiative, Najeh’s name became familiar among his colleagues and trainers.

Everyone expected him to have a bright future. After the completion of the certificate, he applied for a nano-degree scholarship. He was disappointed to be disqualified but knew that his failure was a call to put in more effort.

Najeh spent three months on applications, research and learning tricks in the website development course; his main discipline in the initiative.

“I didn’t leave any video unwatched or article unread”. This time, his success had a different taste, culminating the personal effort.

Today, Najeh talks proudly about the websites he developed for companies, about his future plans and about the certificates he has added to his CV.

His biggest achievement, is the positive influence he has had on his family, friends and acquaintances. “I became an ambassador for coding without knowing it. I even convinced my father to become a mobile app developer. My relationship with him also changed. Now, we are colleagues!”