Idder Motii, 11, is a Moroccan self-taught programming prodigy who is fluent in English as well as three programming languages: Python, C++, and SQL.
Rabat – Motii participated in the coding and debugging workshop in Agadir during DevFest Agadir 2018, hosted by Google Developer Group (GDG), where he made a presentation about his favorite programming language, Python.
Motii became the youngest speaker at a GDG conference, where he was among participants from big tech companies such as Google, and speakers from the US, Germany, and Spain.
At the event, he earned himself the title of the “youngest Moroccan programmer.”
In an interview with news outlet RT Online, Motii said that he owes some of his progress to his brother. ”My brother’s influence was very important; he got me into this field. I thank him so much.”
When asked about his favorite programming language, he said: ”Python is my favorite programming language. I use it every day.”
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Motii compared Python to one of the biggest programming languages, Java, arguing that Python is his favorite language because “it is more productive and unlocks more opportunities. There is a lot of syntax and functions and its variables are easy.”
While the boy’s family discovered that he was a rising talent in the world of programming, they still did not expect him to be as good as he is.
His uncle, Abdellah Motii, said: ”We knew he was interested in computing for a while but we didn’t think he was that good at it. His motivation is what got him into learning.”
Idder started learning how to code when he was only ten. He codes in Python, Java, C++, HTML, and Scratch, and he is now in his second year of vocational training.
The self-taught programmer is also a self-taught English speaker. He said he learned English from movies and videos on the internet.
Zakaria Jaiathe, a senior software engineer who met and had a “spontaneous” interview with the young programmer, has started a campaign on the for-profit crowdfunding platform GoFundMe to purchase Motii a pro laptop.
Jaiathe said: “I was so amazed by [Idder Motii’s] technical background and his ability to discuss and understand very advanced topics such as machine learning and augmented reality at his age.”
DevFest Agadir 2018 is a free two-day workshop, on “codelabs, hackathons, hands-on experience, coding and debugging,” that took place in Agadir’s National School of Applied Sciences (ENSA) from December 8 to 9.
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Motii has joined the list of young Moroccan prodigies such as Mariam Amjoun, a nine-year-old Moroccan girl who won the 2018 Arab Reading Challenge in Dubai, beating 10.5 million participants in October, and eight-year-old Moroccan Malak Belarbi, who won first place in Turkey’s global mental arithmetic competition in the same month.
