My name is Mahmoud Al-Qudsi, and I'm currently living in Jordan and I studied in Palestine. You've probably seen me here a lot :)
I run NeoSmart Technologies at http://neosmart.net/ which develops software used by tens of millions of people (for free). I also have a full time position as the Senior Software Architect at Genie-Soft (http://genie-soft.com), which is in the top 5 backup software companies around the globe, makes millions a year, and is headquartered in Jordan.
I've contributed to many open source projects, including WordPress and Ubuntu. I've collaborated with people from across the world of all faiths and cultural origins, without bias, and don't consider myself to be any "better" or smarter (or any worse, for that mater) than anyone else by virtue of my religion, language, or culture.
I never felt the need to shout out that I'm from Palestine because I figured no one cares where people are from, only what they can and have accomplished. Perhaps it is not incorrect to be overt about ones origins, in hopes of dispelling myths perpetrated by comments like yours. Please note, I'm not attacking, only lamenting...
Looks good, I'll be checking out the NeoSmart stuff.
The question is if there are more people like you there. I think you can find a good programmer in any region, but there needs to be a good amount of them in order to create something substantial. So I am yet to be convinced that it's a myth that there's a low amount of talent in Palestine.
Talent is another word for potential - it's there, but it's not necessarily showing. I know it is hard for anyone living in comfort to truly imagine living in the Middle East, with all the conflict, oppressive regimes, and limitations that are around. I can afford the 800 dollars a year for ADSL 2mbps internet (with a 10GB per month download limitation), but not everyone here can. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a PC at home (or even at school) they can learn to hack on while they are young.
You cannot judge a people to be "talentless" without taking in the context. And you cannot/must not ignore the context in this case. It is not these peoples' fault that they are unable to start the next facebook/twitter/whatever, you have no idea how difficult it was for me to accomplish what I did here. People here will put the same amount of effort as yourself, if not more, and not succeed simply because of the environment they are in.. it takes a lot of work to break away from the layers of obstacles in the way and makes something that can be appreciated by people like yourself.
In answer to your question: Yes, there are. Everyone at Genie-Soft is a talented hacker. I've met dozens of hackers at tech meetups and at conventions sponsored by Google and Microsoft. If you're predisposed to not see these people though, they are easy to miss.
I think you should apologise and hang your head in shame! It is simply abhorrent to reason to hear comments such as... x region has no talent, especially in the context of religion, culture or race!
Comments
Hi.
My name is Mahmoud Al-Qudsi, and I'm currently living in Jordan and I studied in Palestine. You've probably seen me here a lot :)
I run NeoSmart Technologies at http://neosmart.net/ which develops software used by tens of millions of people (for free). I also have a full time position as the Senior Software Architect at Genie-Soft (http://genie-soft.com), which is in the top 5 backup software companies around the globe, makes millions a year, and is headquartered in Jordan.
I've contributed to many open source projects, including WordPress and Ubuntu. I've collaborated with people from across the world of all faiths and cultural origins, without bias, and don't consider myself to be any "better" or smarter (or any worse, for that mater) than anyone else by virtue of my religion, language, or culture.
I never felt the need to shout out that I'm from Palestine because I figured no one cares where people are from, only what they can and have accomplished. Perhaps it is not incorrect to be overt about ones origins, in hopes of dispelling myths perpetrated by comments like yours. Please note, I'm not attacking, only lamenting...
Looks good, I'll be checking out the NeoSmart stuff.
The question is if there are more people like you there. I think you can find a good programmer in any region, but there needs to be a good amount of them in order to create something substantial. So I am yet to be convinced that it's a myth that there's a low amount of talent in Palestine.
Talent is another word for potential - it's there, but it's not necessarily showing. I know it is hard for anyone living in comfort to truly imagine living in the Middle East, with all the conflict, oppressive regimes, and limitations that are around. I can afford the 800 dollars a year for ADSL 2mbps internet (with a 10GB per month download limitation), but not everyone here can. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a PC at home (or even at school) they can learn to hack on while they are young.
You cannot judge a people to be "talentless" without taking in the context. And you cannot/must not ignore the context in this case. It is not these peoples' fault that they are unable to start the next facebook/twitter/whatever, you have no idea how difficult it was for me to accomplish what I did here. People here will put the same amount of effort as yourself, if not more, and not succeed simply because of the environment they are in.. it takes a lot of work to break away from the layers of obstacles in the way and makes something that can be appreciated by people like yourself.
In answer to your question: Yes, there are. Everyone at Genie-Soft is a talented hacker. I've met dozens of hackers at tech meetups and at conventions sponsored by Google and Microsoft. If you're predisposed to not see these people though, they are easy to miss.
I think you should apologise and hang your head in shame! It is simply abhorrent to reason to hear comments such as... x region has no talent, especially in the context of religion, culture or race!