Translator: Ammar Alqatari Reviewer: Sharaf Alkibsi
When five major Arab countries instigate large and angry revolutions
in almost one year
and thousands get killed or injured
and governments fall and get replaced by other governments, these relied...
(Applause)
These revolutions relied generally on mobilizing people through the Internet
and social networks especially, like Facebook and Twitter.
So it's very natural for Arabic content on the Internet
to experience an uprising
since the Internet is the source of Arab revolutions
which contributed to liberating countries
and through which young Arabs were able to prove
they are at a high level of social and intellectual communication,
a level which parallels the Western world and possibly exceeds it in some countries.
Your expectations for the percentage of Arabic content on the Internet?
10%?
20%?
60%?
There is only a 3% of Arabic content on the Internet.
This is a modest and a shy number.
It seems that we Arabs have mastered low percentages worldwide
except in one case:
during elections, we get 99.99%.
(Applause)
All studies and statistics that come to us through Internet sites
can be described as both promising and scary.
In reality, all statistics show that the number of Internet users
in the Middle East and North Africa is constantly increasing.
This time the thanks go
to the spark of the Arab revolutions, the social networks
like Facebook and Twitter,
the first asylum for Arab youth in all its formative and social classes,
and which have contributed in creating a boom,
in increasing the number of Arabic users on the Internet.
It is estimated that the total number of Facebook users is about 44 million,
according to a study released last November and performed by
the specialized website Social Baker.
It's very clear the number of Arab users
of the internet is much greater than that number.
That's because the study only included active accounts,
i.e. it excluded all accounts made for purposes of entertainment and socializing.
Facts: according to the study,
21 people sign up for Facebook every minute.
If we take this number and multiply it by 60, or an hour,
we get 1,260 people.
You do the rest of the math.
The following figure shows
the age distribution of most active users of the Internet.
It's very clear that the age group between 18 and 24 years
is the group most present and active on the Internet.
The geographic distribution of Arab users of the Internet from this study shows
that Yemen, Palestine, and Bahrain have gained the least share in the study.
As I've described them before, scary and promising numbers.
Promising because it shows
that Arab youth are hungry for getting information in their native language.
And scary because it show the necessity of improving
Arabic content on the Internet at a very fast rate;
maybe very fast to accommodate the demand of Arabic speakers
from the ocean to the Gulf.
It is suffering.
A note:
The purpose of this study is to show you
the Arabic person doesn't only use the Internet
for social and entertainment purposes as we all suspect,
but there are certainly millions of people from many fields and with many interests
who resort to the Internet as a main source,
or maybe even the only one, to get information.
It is suffering.
Real suffering that'll be felt by whoever experiences this.
Imagine this with me:
After hours of painful search on the Internet
or looking for a serious topic in Arabic on the Internet,
is certainly like looking for a needle in stacks of hay
and not just one haystack.
Real suffering that will be felt by whoever experiences this.
After hours of painstaking search on the Internet,
you find many links with colorful pages,
full of hearts and flowers.
Probably carrying one of the usual names:
Eyes of the Heart. (Laughter)
Purity of the Soul. (Laughter)
The Coast of Lovers. (Laughter)
[Eden nights]. (Laughter)
(Applause)
Yes, even "Nights of Aden."
What's even more spiteful is that these sites prevents you
from viewing the content
and persists that you sign up for that website or forum.
And after going through the sign-up process,
you get merely a few lines
that don't feed or satisfy writing in a weak language
that shows that the writer himself barely knows what he's writing about.
Looking at the site comments,
who can only be described as anonymous,
"Cheeeeeeers",
"Thanks",
"Appreciated",
and "a really important subject".
(Applause)
Imagine.
There is a great inadequacy in Arabic content on the Internet.
Poor content, or even lower than the poverty line.
Among the reasons of this content poverty on the Internet
is a great inadequacy in developing the content.
Many youth place the responsibility
of developing Arabic content
on the governments.
However, it is the responsibility of the Arab youth
to developing their Arabic content.
The bigger problem, from my point of view,
is getting rid of Arabish,
as in writing Arabic
with Arabic letters.
For example,
"Salam Alaikum" is written like this,
"Alaikum alsalam" like wise.
Imagine with me.
The fifth language among 6,500 languages.
360 million speakers from around the world,
and the result is merely 3%.
Clearly there is a gap between the amount of Arabic content
and type of Arabic content.
The central problem lies
in the rate of Arabic users online
compared to the modest and sky content.
Arabic content strength points are:
it is full of news and scandals of artist and celebrities,
soccer players news,
and traditional food recipes.
This is the best.
What is the future of education?
Before discussing the solutions,
I've tried several times
to know the base source of education.
The answer every time was school.
If we wanted to define school in a simple and easy way:
It is a machine that produces identical humans
so that if one was sent from one country to another,
that person would be capable of production and interaction.
(Applause)
By identical I mean reading,
writing, and performing arithmetic.
We no longer need this type of education.
Let me prove--
(Applause)
Let me prove to you more.
Before, when a certain job was advertised,
a good handwriting was required.
In fact, there is no good reason
why a person needed good handwriting to get that job,
except for one reason,
data was archived manually.
The same for arithmetic operations.
We don't need someone who performs arithemetic professionally.
As for reading, it is very important.
What is the solution?
There are many solutions to enrich the Arabic content generally,
and the Yemeni content in particular.
But I will point to the main solution from my point of view.
It is establishing an academy on the cloud.
The idea, simply, is about space
that aims to liberate knowledge from its traditional form.
by creating innovative videos by those who love knowledge.
The cloud academy philosophy relies on open systems.
which flourish through user contributions.
Here comes the importance of sharing knowledge
with those around us to improve lives.
By encouraging the culture of sharing
among cities, villages, and even less fortunate places
through delegations in schools,
universities, charities,
and even youth interested in education,
Those who care about presenting educational material
through atypical methods.
My activities in Aden in promoting open education.
At the beginning the idea started when I gave seminars
and cut from my vacations or weekends
to give free seminars every Thursday.
Then it developed to establishing courses in Ramadan
or technical Ramadanic courses.
Then it developed more to an annual event
under the name of the "Open Education Day",
and the result was 1,030 people targeted
to spreading the idea of open education.
(Applause)
My activity on the Internet
to enrich Arabic content in particular
- of course this picture shows the Open Education Day -
more than 850 articles on the Internet,
and more than 200 high quality videos on the Internet.
The result was more than 100,000 hours spent on my channel on YouTube.
(Applause)
The goal is the inclusion of society
and making it an essential partner
in solving the problems of learning and education.
And escaping the consumerist mindset of Arabic content
to a productive mindset.
And encouraging Arab youth on reading and writing
in Arabic to enrich Arabic Internet content for free.
Thank you.
(Applause)