Abdulwahab Omira, 28, stands in entrance of his destroyed household residence in Damascus, Syria. Omira and his household fled Syria’s civil conflict in 2012 when he was a young person. Now a U.S. citizen and a graduate scholar at Stanford, Omira just lately returned to his residence nation to search for methods the tech trade may assist rebuild it.
Abdulwahab Omira
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Abdulwahab Omira
DAMASCUS, Syria — Abdulwahab Omira escaped Syria’s civil conflict together with his household as a young person, shortly after he was free of jail, having witnessed horrible abuses by the previous regime.
Now a U.S. citizen, he just lately returned to Syria as a Stanford graduate scholar and a budding entrepreneur, hoping to assist jump-start a tech trade in a rustic nonetheless struggling to seek out equilibrium after 14 years of devastating battle.
President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December, however Syria continues to be wracked by spasms of violence, in addition to tens of millions of residents who’ve misplaced their properties, their livelihoods and most every thing else. However occasional glimmers of hope seem, like a latest tech convention that introduced collectively tons of of younger Syrians, and a small variety of Syrian-People, together with Omira, at a Sheraton Lodge ballroom within the capital Damascus.
“Everyone is excited. We want to build. We want to do something for our country,” stated Omira, 28, who took a break from his grasp’s program in synthetic intelligence at Stanford to attend.
The occasion, dubbed Sync ’25: Silicon Valley + Syria, was convened by Syrian-American technologists and entrepreneurs to discover ways in which tech may assist Syria rebuild. Like everybody on the convention, Omira acknowledged the staggering challenges.
“There’s no infrastructure, there is no electricity, there is no water, there’s no internet,” he stated. “Showering is an event.”
Omira stated his personal expertise taught him resilience, and he believes many Syrians have discovered the identical lesson.
Imprisoned at age 14
As a precocious teenager in Damascus, he studied the excessive most cancers charges in an space the place the Syrian authorities disposed of nuclear waste.
He proposed a brand new technique for dealing with the waste and was awarded a patent at age 14. That was adopted with an invite to be honored on the presidential palace in 2012.
However earlier than that occurred, Omira was stopped on the road sooner or later by members of the scary intelligence service. Omira had been working with a professor on the nuclear waste venture, and was carrying a doc associated to the nuclear program. When the safety forces discovered the paper, they tossed Omira in jail.
The expertise was harrowing.
“They start bringing people in, killing them under torture, showing me how they kill them,” he stated. “Each room had a different theme of killing. There’s so much horrible stuff, like room number three, where they killed people with a chainsaw.”
Omira stated he was not bodily harmed. However he was warned that if he was arrested once more, “You will choose one of those rooms to die in.”
He was launched after two months, and his household determined it was time to depart Syria. The Syrian civil conflict had erupted a 12 months earlier, in 2011, prompting tens of millions to flee, and it was more and more clear that nobody within the nation was secure.
The Omira household went from a affluent life in Damascus to a tent in a refugee camp in neighboring Turkey, the place they might stay for a number of years. Finally, they made it to the USA, touchdown in Chicago in 2016.
However Omira did not converse English or have a legitimate high-school diploma. He received a high-school equivalency, a GED certificates, and stored learning till he received an ideal rating on the ACT faculty entrance examination -– and admission at Stanford.
He graduated with a pc science diploma final 12 months, and is now engaged on his grasp’s in synthetic intelligence.
He runs a tech startup, known as Farmitix, designed to assist farmers in Syria and elsewhere. Throughout his latest journey to Syria, he met with tech college students at seven universities all through the nation.
Abdulwahab Omira (center-left in darkish swimsuit and crimson tie) stands subsequent to Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (center-right in blue swimsuit and blue tie). Omira and different Syrian-People met with the president to speak about how tech may assist rebuild Syria.
Abdulwahab Omira
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Abdulwahab Omira
Utilizing tech to rebuild a damaged nation
Nonetheless, the obstacles can appear overwhelming.
For starters, there’s the every day problem of getting electrical energy and an web connection. Many younger Syrian tech college students need to study extra about AI. However U.S. merchandise, like ChatGPT, usually are not simply out there on account of complete U.S. sanctions. So Syrians say they’re studying on DeepSeek, a Chinese language mannequin.
The U.S. sanctions had been imposed towards Syria’s longtime dictator, Assad, and his regime. He was ousted in December, however the sanctions haven’t been lifted, and there is not any signal they are going to be any time quickly.
This was a recurring theme on the latest tech convention.
“The sanctions now are quite prohibitive. The banking system is disconnected from the rest of the world. And so folks like me can never invest in Syria until these sanctions are lifted,” stated Rama Chakaki, a Syrian-American and a tech investor from Southern California who organized the convention.
For now, the objective is to hook up with Syria’s tech group, which was so remoted through the conflict.
“One thing about Syrians is we’re very socially interconnected,” stated Chakaki. “All of us, having been in the diaspora, feeling very displaced, couldn’t wait for that chance to get together. So my 12,000 connections on LinkedIn worked really well for me.”
Some 700 individuals attended a latest tech convention in Damascus, Syria. Most had been Syrian and Syrian-American. As a result of conflict and sanctions, Syria’s tech trade has been largely remoted for years. The nation continues to battle with primary providers comparable to electrical energy.
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Greg Myre/NPR
When Abdulwahab Omira returned to Syria, he visited his previous household residence within the capital, which was destroyed by the combating.
“I went to my room. I was digging out my memories. And then I found a computer science book that I got in seventh grade,” he stated. “They were explaining what the internet is, how to use the keyboard, how to turn off the PC.”
Omira has come a good distance since then. He summed up his journey, from refugee to Stanford scholar to tech entrepreneur.
“The U.S. is definitely the land of opportunity. If you put in 100%, you get 100%,” he stated. “In Turkey, if you put in 100%, you probably will get 10%. Here in Syria, if you put in 100%, you get put in prison.”
He is hoping to write down a brand new system for a brand new Syria.
NPR’s Jawad Rizkallah contributed to this report.
