Saleh Fareed

JEDDAH — Out of more than 2,000 programmers, designers and entrepreneurs, 14-year-old Yazed Al Khalaf, Syrian national but living in Riyadh, caught everyone’s attention at Hajj Hackathon conducted by the Saudi Federation of Cybersecurity, programming, and drones at Jeddah Center for Forums and Events.

Earlier this year, Yazed — who has his own YouTube channel — was invited as the youngest-ever participant at Hajj Hackathon Conference here.

The youngest participant at the Hajj Hackathon taught himself the basics of computer coding two years ago. It was then time to "learn some real ones," he said.

He continued, “I learned the language of HTML CSS through YouTube, other social media sites and with the help of my experienced uncle.”

Yazed teamed up with three other Saudi programmers — Mukhtar Al Haji, Mohammed Al Doukhi and Yazed Al Marawani — to create a new program to organize the big crowds that occur during Haj.

Looking to the future, Yazed would like to work more with programming and designing as hobbies but his life dream is to be a businessman.