Eighteen year old Mohammed Essam, left, and Khalid Hafez, 20, are learning basic programming at the Al Amal School for Deaf Students in partnership with Microsoft. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National
Eighteen year old Mohammed Essam, left, and Khalid Hafez, 20, are learning basic programming at the Al Amal School for Deaf Students in partnership with Microsoft. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National
Eighteen year old Mohammed Essam, left, and Khalid Hafez, 20, are learning basic programming at the Al Amal School for Deaf Students in partnership with Microsoft. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National
Eighteen year old Mohammed Essam, left, and Khalid Hafez, 20, are learning basic programming at the Al Amal School for Deaf Students in partnership with Microsoft. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

Deaf students learn code with dreams to become programmers


Ramola Talwar Badam
  • English
  • Arabic

SHARJAH // When Mohammed Essam punched in a code and watched a set of robots stop and turn at barriers following his commands, he quickly grasped that his hearing impairment would no longer be a hurdle in his dream of being a programmer.

The 18-year-old is among 15 students learning basic programming at the Al Amal School for Deaf Students in partnership with Microsoft. It is part of an ambitious project to equip students with disabilities with the same skills as pupils in regular schools.

“I want to study IT and programming in university so I can help people with hearing disabilities, help create any kind of technology for signing programmes. I also want to design things,” signed Mohammed, who has profound hearing loss and communicates through a school teacher.

“I liked to make the robot move and learn new programmes. I like this because I can do this by myself. It is easier than connecting with people - that is not easy.”

Instead of teaching complicated coding, Microsoft used the kudo tool, which uses icon-based visuals. The students picked up the concept almost immediately and will be introduced to more advanced software in September.

“This is like step one for computer programming and, in the next academic year, we will teach them to write a proper code,” said Radwa Salem, programme manager at Microsoft Gulf, about working with software to develop a mobile app.

“We believe that computer science, coding and programming can be a future for these students and can open a new channel for entrepreneurship. Employment is something they are always worried about, they say, ‘who will hire us?’ This showed them they could pursue this as a career. This is an area they are interested in, especially now that they trust the technology. They are very tech savvy, very visual, so understand quickly.”

It has been a learning experience for all.

“Our generation is not so into technology so sometimes if a teacher has any problem, the student helps her. For us to trust the abilities of our students gives them a better chance in the future,” said school principal Afaf Al Haridi.

“They cannot use their language so this limited them before but, with the new technology, new horizons have opened up.”

The process began a year ago when the school was included in the Mohammed bin Rashid Smart Learning Programme, which offers digital learning to 240 public schools.

It has transformed communication and instruction in the school. Before, one designated teacher sat before a camera and completed sign language videos of each subject, then another tech-savvy teacher edited and stored the information.

After learning programmes such as Office Mix, any teacher easily embeds sign language videos onto PowerPoint that can be opened by staff or students at any time.

“Every teacher became his own content developer. It relieved the stress on that one sign language specialist of standing in front of the camera for hours translating lesson after lesson,” said Ms Salem.

Understanding the aspirations of the students has also been an eye-opener.

“It has been an exceptional engagement with Al Amal school, this was a special story for us because here you can really see how technology will change the way these students are going to use it,” said Ahmed Ashour, regional education sector lead, Microsoft.

“For us, the real impact happened when students said this technology helped them become ‘the same as the other students’. It means that they always felt there was a difference. Now they can actually utilise materials created for other students and have equal access to it.”

rtalwar@thenational.ae

Three-day coronation

Royal purification

The entire coronation ceremony extends over three days from May 4-6, but Saturday is the one to watch. At the time of 10:09am the royal purification ceremony begins. Wearing a white robe, the king will enter a pavilion at the Grand Palace, where he will be doused in sacred water from five rivers and four ponds in Thailand. In the distant past water was collected from specific rivers in India, reflecting the influential blend of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology on the coronation. Hindu Brahmins and the country's most senior Buddhist monks will be present. Coronation practices can be traced back thousands of years to ancient India.

The crown

Not long after royal purification rites, the king proceeds to the Baisal Daksin Throne Hall where he receives sacred water from eight directions. Symbolically that means he has received legitimacy from all directions of the kingdom. He ascends the Bhadrapitha Throne, where in regal robes he sits under a Nine-Tiered Umbrella of State. Brahmins will hand the monarch the royal regalia, including a wooden sceptre inlaid with gold, a precious stone-encrusted sword believed to have been found in a lake in northern Cambodia, slippers, and a whisk made from yak's hair.

The Great Crown of Victory is the centrepiece. Tiered, gold and weighing 7.3 kilograms, it has a diamond from India at the top. Vajiralongkorn will personally place the crown on his own head and then issues his first royal command.

The audience

On Saturday afternoon, the newly-crowned king is set to grant a "grand audience" to members of the royal family, the privy council, the cabinet and senior officials. Two hours later the king will visit the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most sacred space in Thailand, which on normal days is thronged with tourists. He then symbolically moves into the Royal Residence.

The procession

The main element of Sunday's ceremonies, streets across Bangkok's historic heart have been blocked off in preparation for this moment. The king will sit on a royal palanquin carried by soldiers dressed in colourful traditional garb. A 21-gun salute will start the procession. Some 200,000 people are expected to line the seven-kilometre route around the city.

Meet the people

On the last day of the ceremony Rama X will appear on the balcony of Suddhaisavarya Prasad Hall in the Grand Palace at 4:30pm "to receive the good wishes of the people". An hour later, diplomats will be given an audience at the Grand Palace. This is the only time during the ceremony that representatives of foreign governments will greet the king.

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The%20specs
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WOMAN AND CHILD

Director: Saeed Roustaee

Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi

Rating: 4/5

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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The specs
  • Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
  • Power: 640hp
  • Torque: 760nm
  • On sale: 2026
  • Price: Not announced yet
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THE CLOWN OF GAZA

Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah 

Starring: Alaa Meqdad

Rating: 4/5

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League final:

Who: Real Madrid v Liverpool
Where: NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine
When: Saturday, May 26, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match on BeIN Sports

Lexus LX700h specs

Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor

Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm

Transmission: 10-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh590,000

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Moon Music

Artist: Coldplay

Label: Parlophone/Atlantic

Number of tracks: 10

Rating: 3/5