Born on December 21, 2001 in the capital of Saudi Arabia, I had a diverse upbringing. My father moved with his family to Saudi from Lebanon when he was eight. My mother traveled to Saudi from the Philippines after obtaining her nursing degree to meet the demand for nurses. Growing up, I attended private international institutions from kindergarten to high school. It was the norm to have over ten nationalities represented in every class. As I grew more globally aware, I realized how privileged I was to have had such a dynamic upbringing. My life required me to work with diversity and adapt to change, preparing me for a globalized and interconnected world.

As an eight-year-old, I used to play FarmTown on my father’s Facebook and work laptop. He eventually got me my own Facebook account (against their age policy) and a complimentary Toshiba. I recall the first time I explored my newly created account. Facebook suggested that I add my favorite older cousin Lama as a friend. I recall wondering whether my new Toshiba had psychic abilities as I had longed to talk to her. I ended up chatting with her in real-time despite her being hundreds of miles away across international borders.

A few days later, I stumbled upon Windows XP’s text-to-speech program in the Control Panel. I remember my parents’ reaction as I intentionally made my inanimate laptop read slightly inappropriate sentences aloud. My father was certainly questioning his decision to purchase me a Toshiba. As an eight-year-old, on the other hand, I was starting to think my Toshiba was supernatural. I became hooked to my Toshiba and its seemingly limitless potential.

Today, I’ve just graduated with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio). I’ve been exposed to the breadth of the field, from systems and cloud computing to cybersecurity and blockchain. This breadth has allowed me to develop a sense of my specific passion within the field: Artificial Intelligence (AI). To dive deeper into AI, I've decided to further my studies with a Master's in Computer Science. To that end, I was granted a full graduate assistantship (GA) at Miami University to simultaneously pursue my degree and work on my research interests.

I believe the future of software lies at its intersection with AI. For example, I think Natural Language Processing (NLP) can help bridge the current gap in the accuracy and reliability of language translation software. Translators currently on the market, including Google’s, are unreliable and don’t effectively integrate word context and idioms, often producing sentences that are nonsensical to native speakers. By equipping translators with the ability to recognize word patterns, NLP has the potential to bridge the gap and usher in the next generation of translators.

Put simply, AI opens up a whole new world of possibilities.