Kuwaiti businessman Mohammad Al-Sharekh has passed away. He passed away on March 6, 2024, aged 82.
He created computing history as the first person to create an operating system in the Arabic language.
AlAnoud AlSharekh, Abdallah AlSharekh, Manayer AlSharekh, and Fahad AlSharekh are the four children of Mohammed AlSharekh and Moudhi AlSuqair. Little is known about the wife and children of Mohammed AlSharekh on the internet as of the time of this publication.
“His Excellency the Minister of Information and Culture, Chairman of the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Literature, Mr. Abdul Rahman Badah Al-Mutairi, and the leaders and employees of the Council to the families and lovers of the deceased over this tragedy,” said Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters on X.
نعت الأمانة العامة للمجلس الوطني
للثقافة والفنون والآداب المغفور له بإذن الله تعالى
الأستاذ/ محمد عبدالرحمن الشارخ
الذي وافته المنية اليوم.ونقلت الأمانة العامة تعازي معالي وزير الإعلام والثقافة رئيس المجلس الوطني للثقافة والفنون والآداب السيد/ عبدالرحمن بداح المطيري… pic.twitter.com/tQZuE5HTRF
— المجلس الوطني للثقافة والفنون والآداب (@kw_nccal) March 6, 2024
A major obstacle faced by those who spoke other languages in the early 1980s was that the majority of computers were made just for English speakers. Al-Sharekh committed himself to finding a solution since he saw this as a task. Following several years of study and experimentation, he produced the first computer interface in Arabic.
He started the Kuwait-based Al-Alamiah Group in 1980, and in 1982 he formed Sakhr Software Company, which became a pioneer in the field of Arabic language processing research and development.
The Arabic language in computers has led to the acquisition of multiple patents by Al-Sharekh’s company. With three US patents in this area, SSC is the sole company in the Middle East and North Africa.
The company has created a number of innovative commercial products and solutions that are well-known for their precision and effectiveness. Examples of these include machine translation from Arabic to English and optical character recognition for languages that use Arabic scripts.
The business started offering Arabic-language localization services to Microsoft in 1986.
Al-Sharekh’s contributions not only made it easier for Arabs to communicate and work together, but they also encouraged a new generation of technologists to push the envelope on language diversity in technology.
This development created new opportunities for Arabic speakers to interact with computers and access information in their native tongue, making it a noteworthy turning point in the history of technology.
Al-Sharekh was the deputy director-general of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development prior to joining the SSC.
He represented Kuwait and the Arab Group in Washington, D.C. at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Al-Sharekh was vice chairman of the Association of Arab Economists and a co-founder of the Industrial Bank of Kuwait, where he also chaired the board of directors.
