Projects

These are my AI in education and EdTech projects, led by my app Stories from Home.

Stories from Home

Private pilotI designed and built it with AI-assisted development (Claude Code).

A story app that helps children of expats, of any nationality, learn their home dialect.

Stories from Home: the case study

Why I built it

When parents live abroad, they worry their children will grow up without their home culture: the language, the accent and the stories from home. Stories from Home is for children of expats. It teaches how people actually speak and what the culture is really like, in a country the child did not grow up in.

How it works

The app is for every country and nationality, with one nationality pack per country. The first is the Egyptian pack, حكايات من مصر, in pilot testing with Egyptian families in Europe, starting in Sweden. Its first story is about Naguib Mahfouz. Each story adapts to the child's age and reading level.

Healthy by design

Progress is a story map with passport stamps, with no points and no loss mechanics. I left out social features such as scoreboards and chats. Parents see which text the AI wrote, where the facts come from, and screen-time defaults based on Swedish public-health guidance.

AI with guardrails

AI rewrites each chapter for the child, but only from a fact-checked fact sheet. Its output is checked and falls back to hand-written text, sensitive history is gated by age, and the child's name never reaches the AI. Parents can also turn AI off.

Screenshots

  • Stories from Home welcome screen with a grandparent and a child reading a book, and a set-up button
    The welcome screen is the same for every family, before they choose a country.
  • Setup screen for the child's first name and age, and whether the story talks to a boy, a girl or a group
    The name stays on the phone. Arabic "you" changes for a boy, girl or group.
  • Setup screen where the parent picks the hardest Egyptian Arabic line the child can read, from five levels
    Parents pick the hardest line their child can read, and the app adjusts.
  • Story map with places from the story along a river, and buttons for the passport stamps and the notebook
    Progress is a story map with passport stamps, with no points.
  • Reading page for a six-year-old with one short Egyptian Arabic line in large letters and a transliteration
    A six-year-old reads one short line, with vowel marks and a transliteration.
  • Reading page for a sixteen-year-old with full Egyptian Arabic paragraphs, in dark mode
    A sixteen-year-old reads the same scene in full paragraphs.
  • Story page with a picture of old Cairo houses, a cat with her own line, and one Egyptian Arabic line with a transliteration
    Basbousa the cat looks in through the window and adds her own line.
  • Practice screen to pick the picture for the Arabic word for house, showing the right answer and the line from the story
    Practice uses pictures, words and sentences from the story.
  • Practice screen matching Egyptian Arabic words to English words, showing the right pairs after a mistake
    A wrong answer shows the right one, and the word comes back later.

Other projects

  • Youssef Farouk presenting ReCloset with a microphone at Olympic Village Egypt

    ReCloset

    Since 2024Co-founder and operations lead (volunteering)

    Helps women with auditory disabilities from A.A.D in Egypt turn scraps into clothes.

    What we built

    We bought equipment that will last years, paid rent and paid wages above market value. I structured a partnership with the Egyptian Clothing Bank for free raw material, so even after the project ends, the women have unlimited raw material and machines that will last years.

    Who runs it

    The women from the Arab Association for the Deaf (A.A.D) run it. I structured the MOU so they have control on the ground, with our support through an M&E (monitoring and evaluation) framework. The funding cycle has ended, and they still produce and sell. I help with partnerships and advise on where to sell.

  • Framework Analysis of Cognitive Development and Bildung in AI Education under We the UAE 2031 and the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031

    Bildung is the lifelong process of maturing into an autonomous, empathetic, and responsible human being, rather than simply memorising facts or training for a job.

    Expected 2027Researcher (master's dissertation)

    AI in UAE schools, and what it means for cognitive development and Bildung.

    More details

    A qualitative framework analysis of whether AI in education strengthens cognitive development and Bildung, under We the UAE 2031 and the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031. I did in-person interviews in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, within my studies in Sweden, Germany and Italy.

    My AI in education research

  • Erasmus Mundus application checklist

    Free PDFI wrote it from my own applications.

    A free checklist for Erasmus Mundus applicants, from choosing programmes to the interview.

    The checklist and the free download

Tools I built

  • Odoo ERP built with generative AI

    2025Builder, at Lantern Ventures and Sanad Partners

    An Odoo ERP I built with generative AI to centralise operations and data.

  • Investor reporting dashboard

    2025Builder, at Lantern Ventures and Sanad Partners

    A reporting dashboard for investors, built with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Apps Script.

  • Contract tracking tool

    2024 to 2025Builder, at GIZ

    A contract tracker that saves about 400 hours a year of audit readiness work.

  • This website

    2026I built it with Claude.

    A fast, static site with no trackers, no cookies and no server code.

Every page has a mystery button, and each one does something different.

Press it if you dare: some are cooler than others.