In the past 30 days, two new digital hubs have been inaugurated in Baghdad.
On December 16th, Computiq kicked off its Hub200 operations — the name comes from "response 200," the HTTP success response. The Computiq team, led by Muklah Naji, has been operational for five years running workshops in partnership with Harvard's CS50 program and other US programs. Today their rooms host coding and non-coding trainings, with an open area full of digital enthusiasts and tech students.
On January 11th, the Makers of Baghdad hub opened a bigger, three-floor location with training rooms, co-working spaces, and the finest FabLab in Iraq — led by Ali Taher, Muhammad, Mustafa, Thulfikar Hameed, and Ahmed Dawood Salman. It's home to the IoTMakers communities and covers under-18 STEM training through IoT Kids and the IoTKids app targeting MENA. Its co-working space is already fully booked by 22+ startups and SMEs.
Both hubs add firepower to Baghdad's tech-driven communities and will be a capacity-building touch point for hundreds of thousands of tech students and graduates over the next two years. I'm humbled to have worked with both over the past four years, and eager to see more of their success.