Nabil Ali Mohamed’s 82nd Birthday

Today’s Doodle celebrates Egyptian pioneer of Arabic language computing, Dr. Nabil Ali, on his 82nd birthday. Dr. Nabil Ali’s innovations in the field of computational linguistics propelled the Arab world into the Information Age by creating programs that enabled computers to understand Arabic in digital form. 

Dr. Nabil Ali was born in Cairo on this day in 1938. Expressing an interest in art at a young age, Mohamed was inspired to apply his creative passion for visual aesthetics to the world of engineering. After obtaining his PhD in Aeronautical Engineering at Cairo University, he spent over 20 years working as an engineer with the Egyptian Air Force, as well as with various computer and electronics companies throughout the world.

For Dr. Nabil Ali, digitization of Arabic, with its complex linguistic rules and morphology, was a way to connect Arabic speakers with the world.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Nabil Ali published a number of papers, books, and technical reports in support of the developments he was making in the field of computational linguistics. His work won him several awards, including the prestigious Saudi Arabian award, the King Faisal Prize, in 2012—recognizing his pioneering contributions to the Arabic Language and Literature.

Happy birthday, Dr. Nabil Ali!

Doodler Q&A with Kevin Laughlin

Today’s Doodle was created by Doodler Kevin Laughlin.
Below, he shares some thoughts on the making of the Doodle:
 

 Q: Can you tell readers about the process of making this Doodle?

A: This Doodle reminded me of how fun pixel art is to make. It will be difficult not to create excuses to do it for future doodles. 
 

 Q: Did you draw inspiration from anything in particular for this Doodle?

A: Title screens from the 8-bit era video games were my main inspiration. Footage of Professor Mohamed's computer seems to invoke a lot of nostalgia in people who remember his software, so I sought out images that created a similar nostalgia in myself.
 

Q: Do you have any technical tips or tricks that you used to create this Doodle to share with young artists?

A: I think any young artist who wants to learn to paint should try pixel art at some point. This medium that arose from technical limitations shares a lot of principles with traditional oil-painting techniques: how to distill a very detailed scene into one or two colors, the importance of mass placement, and allowing one to focus on color and form rather than mark-making or gesture. It teaches you how to be economic with your choices. 
 

 Q: What do you hope people will take away from this Doodle?

A: I hope those in the west will be inspired to explore how people have approached solutions to digitize their languages or writing systems... it's a fascinating topic!

Early concepts of the Doodle