Lina Al-Atiyyat

Saudi Arabian tech innovator who developed the first Arabic-language coding platform

Lina Al-Atiyyat (b. 1985) revolutionized Middle Eastern tech education through her creation of CodeArabi, the first Arabic-language coding platform launched in 2005. Growing up in Jeddah during the early internet era, she noticed the lack of resources for Arabic speakers interested in programming. Her platform's gamified interface has trained over 300,000 users across 22 Arab nations, with 60% female participants.

In 2012, she founded Digital Horizons Institute, establishing coding academies in underserved regions like Yemen and Sudan. Her YouTube series "Programming in Your Language" has 8 million subscribers. Al-Atiyyat's partnership with UNESCO produced the Arabic Tech Literacy Toolkit, now part of official school curricula in six countries. She pioneered the Saudi Youth Hackathon (2017), which led to 14 tech startups securing venture capital funding. Her memoir "CodeArabi: Bridging Cultures Through Code" details her challenges overcoming gender norms in tech sectors.