Passionate about high-tech, Youssef Jira wants to encourage other young Libyans from generations sacrificed under the dictator Gaddafi to launch initiatives around technologies to modernize the country.
With a bandana on his forehead and a white sweatshirt, the 18-year-old high school student enthusiastically participates in a robot-making competition in a gymnasium in Sarraj, an affluent neighborhood in western Tripoli.
The event brings together around twenty teams made up of budding scientists, boys and girls, amateur graphic designers and other apprentice communicators, from all regions of this country divided by rival political camps.
“We want to send a message to the whole of society because what we have learned through this experience has changed a lot of things in us”, explains to AFP Youssef Jira, referring to the development of individual skills and the spirit of cooperation between comrades beyond differences.
Further on, other young people encourage small amateur robots in competition, to the sound of “Rockabye” by the British group Clean Bandit.
With school programs glorifying the regime put in place by the “guide” Muammar Gaddafi and where the teaching of foreign languages ??was marginalized, the Libyan education system did not promote for decades any development of critical thinking or initiative.
The programs were changed after the fall of the dictator in 2011, but the repeated political crises punctuated by violence did not help their implementation, nor the establishment of lasting political institutions.
In the meantime, the population, young people in the lead, aspires to work for the development of their country.
Mohamed Zayed, who coordinates the robot competition for a private international school in Tripoli, is convinced that such initiatives can “open the horizons” of Libya because they involve more than “just robots”, by mobilizing the entrepreneurial spirit and a taste for technology.
“These young people also had to manage relations between them, with the idea of ??inclusion, unity and peace,” he told AFP, after a speech in front of high school students, their families but also officials of the government.
For Mohamed Zayed, it is above all a question of “preparing future workers and raising awareness in the country of the importance of technology and innovation”.
In front of the gymnasium, about twenty teams present their robots. Their composition also illustrates a desire to integrate, in a very conservative society, often marginalized groups such as women, immigrants or disabled people.
Shadrawan Khalfallah, 17, embarked on the adventure, seeing in technology a way to meet climate and health challenges, but also an opportunity to “put girls first”.
“There weren’t many girls apart from us, so we created this team to help society evolve and show that we exist,” the young high school student in a pink sweatshirt told AFP as she handed out stickers. on behalf of his team: “Change”.
Professor of biology, physics and chemistry, Nagwa Al-Ghani, mentor of one of the teams, also believes that the technologies will contribute to the development and “a better image” of the country.
“We get these ideas from abroad and we think why not develop them ourselves here?”, told AFP this Libyan who studied in the United Kingdom, calling on Libyan officials to “be more interested in to science and technology.
“We need it if we want our country to develop and we have to start with education,” she insists.
In this oil-rich country, the government assures that it is making youth and technology a central axis of its development plan with “new initiatives” for digital, telecommunications, the knowledge economy, training young people and even “smart cities”.
“Technology is the language of our time and it is young people who speak it,” said Mohamed Hamouda, government spokesman in Tripoli, who was present at the event.
“Libya lacks nothing, neither human resources, nor intelligence, nor determination of the youth”, adds the person in charge, resulting from the civil company.
But, he says, “what we lack is lasting stability as well as a strategic vision to support young people”.
03/15/2023 07:25:12 – Tripoli (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
