Arab Open Source Movement and Arabic Content

The community of Arabic digital content and open source movement in Egypt, Palestine and the Arab world has lost one of its pioneers and heavy weight evangelists: Ali Shaath.

Ali Shaeth, son of the Palestinian leader Nabeel Shaat a computer engineer and cofounder of Cairo, Egypt based Arab Digital expression in 2005 with his wife Ranwa Yehia

The NGO supports individual and group projects and holds computer literacy and open source advocacy campus for children across the Arab world between the age of 12 and 15 aiming to help them express themselves via digital tools and apps.

Ali founded also an Egyptian electronics company, Research & Electronics Manufacturing (REEM)
that works on electricity bill payment and is a co-founder of the Egyptian Association for Free and Open Software.

Shaath who died yesterday with a heart attack at the age of about 45 is one of the main advocates of open source movement in Egypt and the Arab world.