Bahrain techies set to educate Arab world

Two young Bahraini men have set their goal in stone to educate the Arab world of the importance of technology despite their modest means and lack of support.

Sadiq Jaffar and Ali Sabeel, both Education Ministry employees specialised in education and Information Technology (IT), are one of the pioneer experts in Bahrain in their field.

For this purpose, they have established an Arabic channel on YouTube to educate people with limited knowledge of English. However they are yet to receive any proper support in order to take their dream forward.

Tech Talk was launched in March and despite the modest capabilities, already boasts of nearly 50 tutorial videos on various technology-related subjects. While producing the videos, Sadiq and Ali are considerate about users who are not well versed in technology and thus tries to ‘keep it simple’.

The link to their YouTube channel link is http://youtube.com/+techtalkbh

News of Bahrain had a tête-à-tête with the duo:

1. What is Tech Talk all about? Why was it launched?

The channel is specialised in IT and is divided into techniques, e-learning and pictures. We launched the channel to train and help others in technology. We are doing this every day for family members, colleagues and friends. So we decided to record it. IT plays a big part in our life and we want everyone in our society to be friendly with it.

2. How is the response to the channel?

Lots of people from Bahrain and other Arab countries subscribe to the channel and contact us to thank and ask for more and that makes us very proud of what we are doing and we’re planning to give more and more. However we didn’t get any support yet from anywhere and need Bahrain media too to support us to continue and improve our tutorials.

3. Where are you from in Bahrain?

We are two young guys, living in Bani Jamrah and Sitra.

4. What are your educational qualifications?

We both got Bachelor Degree in Education and IT from University of Bahrain.

5. When did your interest for technology begin?

Since school days we were very interested in technology and were always trying to improve ourselves.

6. How did this partnership begin?

During unversity days we used to discuss technology matters and after we graduated we continued this.

7. Why did you choose the Arabic language as the medium instead of a universal language like English?

The English content in YouTube is huge and rich but the Arabic content is very poor and needs to be improved.

8. Who are your target audience?

Every single user is our target - children, teens and adults from Arab countries. That is why we are making our tutorials very simple and short.

9. What is the biggest obstacle you face in this venture?

Financial support is the largest obstacle we face at the moment and prevents the development in our performance. We are trying hard to overcome this because people are expecting the best from us and we should satisfy them. We are hoping to find a proper support in future. Currently we are not getting any income from this.

10. What are the needs to run this channel?

A proper microphone is a must because with low class microphone, the sound will never be clear and sharp. Also we need to test every single information and lots of applications and programmes before we share it. An advanced computer is needed for video editing and graphic designing. We are planning to start our own studio with camera and lighting as well.

11. Where do you see yourselves five years from now?

Our channel will be the No. 1 channel in this field and compete with other Arab channels.

12. Are you expecting any financial help from government or a technology based company?

Yes, we anticipate support from government or companies to support us.

Caption : Sadiq Jaffar and Ali Sabeel