# Rebin M. Ahmed **Director** at [The Code Lab](https://coding.krd) A software engineer, university lecturer and PhD candidate, Rebin co-founded The Code Lab in Erbil to give children in Kurdistan and Iraq a real start in technology long before university, in their own language. In three years, he has led it from a single room to an organization that has changed how schools across the region think about tech education. ### The question that started it Rebin M. Ahmed has spent nearly a decade in higher education, and from the front of the lecture hall he kept seeing the same thing: bright, ambitious students writing their first line of code at eighteen. Children in Kurdistan and Iraq grow up surrounded by technology, yet almost no one was teaching them how to build with it. By the time they reached university, many were choosing careers they had never had the chance to try. So he asked a simple question: **Why wait until eighteen? Why not start at five?** That question became The Code Lab. Rebin co-founded it with Satar Dawood, his partner at the software company Optimal since 2016, with one intention: a place where young people could learn coding, robotics and AI close to home, at their own level, and in their own language. As he puts it: We realized that while many kids were already passionate about technology, they simply didn’t know where to start. ### Built without waiting The Code Lab opened in August 2023, in a year of regional conflict and economic crisis. There was no outside funding and no one to wait for, just a single 70 m² room. Every dinar it earned went back into the classroom. Rather than import a ready-made program, Rebin and the team wrote their own curriculum, drawing on academic research and years of building real software. Every choice was about access: lessons in Kurdish, Arabic and English; courses that run on ordinary laptops, because “families shouldn’t have to buy expensive devices just so their children can learn”; simple, easy-to-use robotics kits; and dedicated classes for children with autism and attention challenges. By 2024 The Code Lab had doubled to 150 m², and in 2025 it moved into a three-story, 300 m² learning hub. More than 3,000 learners, from five-year-olds to young professionals, have now come through its programs. It has rebuilt the technology curriculum at King’s School, equipped four robotics labs including the largest in the country at Erbil Polytechnic University, served as implementing partner for the U.S. Department of State’s Future Citizen program, and co-organizes the Iraqi National VEX Robotics Championship (INVRC), which sends Iraqi teams to the VEX World Championship. ### Students on the national stage At The Code Lab, learning a skill is only half the job; students also stand up and present what they’ve built. The Code Lab organized the first Innovation Exhibition in partnership with Youth Hub, inaugurated by H.E. Areen Barzani, founder of the Kurdistan Foundation, where 100 students from Erbil schools showcased their own inventions. It has exhibited at HITEX three years in a row and been one of the event’s highlights every time. At HITEX 2026, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani spent more than fifteen minutes with its students and said he saw the future in their eyes. In 2025 and 2026 it also exhibited at MEDICO and at MEETS, the Middle East Education, Technology & Students Exhibition, and each time its booth stood out as the most engaging place on the floor. The Kurdistan Region’s Minister of Education, Dr. Alan Hama Saeed Salih, called its AI & Technology Festival at King’s School “a categorical shift in education in Kurdistan.” Ask Rebin what success looks like, though, and he points to something smaller: Seeing a 10-year-old explain their AI project with pride and clarity — that’s what success looks like for us. ### Changing the landscape Three years on, the conversation about tech education in the region has changed. Schools that once saw coding as an extra are now planning their own programs, wishing they had started sooner, or already putting them in place. Today, the Ministry of Education and the Kurdistan Innovation Institute are preparing innovation rooms in schools: the model The Code Lab has been building and proving since 2023. Rebin is proud to have helped spark that shift at a national level, and clear about what it took: **I didn’t want to be just another critic of the situation. I took action. I didn’t wait for anyone’s help or approval. I paved the way, and I’ve paid a heavy price for it, but I’m happy to be where I am.** He brings both sides of the field to the work. Rebin is a software engineer and tech lead with a decade of industry experience, a lecturer at Tishk International University teaching AI, robotics, cloud computing and software engineering, and a PhD candidate at the University of Kurdistan Hewlêr. His ambition reaches further still: he wants programming taught in every school, as part of the national curriculum. His reason is simple: When barriers are removed, a student from here can be just as capable as a student anywhere else in the world. **He started by asking why students should have to wait until eighteen. At The Code Lab, they don’t.** ## Links - Website: - LinkedIn: - GitHub: - Instagram: ## Projects - [Miras's Brain Tumor Detection Tool: What Our AI Course Builds](https://coding.krd/projects/miras-brain-tumor-detection-ai): At 14, Miras Abdulghaur built an AI tool that highlights possible brain tumors in medical scans. Revealed at MEDICO 2025 and featured live on Evin, Jin w Jyan, his project shows what students achieve... - [Rana’s Breast Cancer Detection Tool: AI for Early Screening](https://coding.krd/projects/rana-breast-cancer-detection-ai): Rana Kovan, a 9th grader at The Code Lab, built a deep learning tool that analyzes breast scans for early signs of cancer. Her project debuted at MEDICO 2025 and took her live onto Rudaw TV’s October... - [Niyaz's Blind Stick: One Robotics Course, a Million Views](https://coding.krd/projects/niyaz-smart-blind-stick): In his first and only course at The Code Lab, 12-year-old Niyaz Hoshyar built a smart stick that vibrates to warn blind people of obstacles. Shown at MEDICO 2025 and live on Evin, Jin w Jyan, his vide... Profile page: https://coding.krd/team/rebin-m-ahmed