Renowned Kuwaiti entrepreneur and author Mohammed Al Sharekh, the founder and chairman of Sakhr Software Company, credited as the tech pioneer who introduced the first Arabic Language Operating System into computers in 1982, passed away on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. He was 82 years.
Throughout his illustrious career, Al Sharekh achieved numerous milestones, including the development of the first Holy Quran software and nine Hadith books software in English in 1985. He completed the Islamic Information Archive and OCR in 1994, the Arabic text speech in 1998, machine translation from and into Arabic in 2002, and automated speech translation in 2010 and developing more than 90 educational and coding programs for the Arab youth.
Born in Kuwait 1942, Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al Sharekh graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Cairo University in 1965 and earned his master’s degree in economic development from Williams College in the state of Massachusetts, USA.
Al Sharekh held several significant positions throughout his career. He served as the Deputy Director- General of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Washington, and co-founded and chaired the Board of Directors of the Industrial Bank of Kuwait. He also served as Vice-Chairman of the Association of Arab Economists.
Al Sharekh founded AlAlamiah Group with headquarters in Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He devoted his efforts to established Sakhr Software Company as a project to introduce the Arabic language into computers. He pioneered the introduction of the Arabic language into computers for the first time in history during the 1980s. Additionally, he established multiple training centres across numerous Arab countries, further advancing technological literacy in the region.
He initiated the Book in a Newspaper project in collaboration with UNESCO in 1997, demonstrating his commitment to promoting literacy and cultural exchange. Al Sharekh was also one of the financers of the Centre for Arab Unity Studies and the Arab Organization for Translation, and contributed to the establishment of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, furthering cultural exchange between the Arab world and Europe.
His archive includes 250 cultural and literary magazines spanning from the late 19th century to 2010. For his outstanding contributions, he was honoured with prestigious awards such as the King Faisal Prize in the Service of Islam, the State Award from Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, and the Grand Appreciation Award as part of the Arab Technology Awards at GITEX Show.
