nuance intelligence

Just finished lunch with Dr. Majid Saalan, who is a professor in Computer Science from the University of Baghdad. He got his masters in speech recognition from the University of Baghdad and Ph.D in biometrics from the Iraqi Commission for Computers and Infomatics. He has been teaching at the University since 2000.

After the war started, he moved his family to Amman, Jordan, and continued to teach in Baghdad, because, he said, “the students couldn’t do anything constructive other than go to school.” As a professor, he was held in the highest regard by the community, but as an independent thinker who would not join a militia, he found it increasingly difficult to stay alive.

Living anywhere he could evade trouble — from friends’ couches to his cousin’s car — he slept with a gun under his pillow for years. One of his former students who was running IT for one militia (contemplate THAT for a second) told him that he was on a list of 325 people, 297 of whom were already dead.

Fortunately, Dr. Shaalan is now in Denver with his family, training students in basic PC building, in a program underwritten by Dell in the Denver Public Schools, and refurbishing computers for the Jared Polis Foundation. But it’s far from a happy ending.

What’s the nuance? A few of my peers and I sat around speaking with Dr. Shalaan, offering contacts and helping him invent a near-term future for himself here, and a long-term future in Baghdad, many things came to light for me:

1. The general and obvious thankfulness which we tend to overlook when dealing with our daily problems, which seem trivial in discussions like these.
2. We talked a bit about building a network of Iraqis who could work remotely on IT projects, but our perspective neglected to appreciate the lack of water, electricity and security in Baghdad, as well as the challenges that refugees have in places like Amman and Damascus. Read more about the limits of leapfrog thinking.
3. US and global business leaders – regardless of political perspective – can lead a humanitarian effort to help rebuild the Iraqi economy, but only after the basic infrastructure and safety is stabilized.
4. The Rotarians (who are helping Dr. Shaalan get settled in Denver) are not just a bunch of weird old folks, but seem to actually be helping people. (note to self, what other outdated stereotypes are cluttering up the grey matter?)
5. All of this strategic thinking about building Iraqi business ecology 2.0 is an arrogant exercise in mental masturbation until Dr. Shaalan finds a job.

So, who do you know that needs to hire a talented (fluent in English) computer generalist with demonstrated excellence in system operations, network development, software and web coding, not to mention his specialties in biometrics and bioinformatics?