Renowned Kuwaiti entrepreneur and author Mohamed al-Sharekh passed away Wednesday. He was 82.
Al-Sharekh, a multi-talented personality, had made various key achievements throughout his career, in particular in technology and computer software.
He excelled in more than one area, showcasing a diverse range of abilities. He was a visionary whose innovative ideas and dedication inspired many.
Al-Sharekh was the founder and chairman of the board of directors of Sakhr Software Company (established 1982), which was the first to introduce the Arabic language Operating System into computers. It was accompanied by a suite of translation programmes, including the Holy Quran and Hadith books, translated into English.
The company developed a new generation of Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques that were used in the development of automated morphology and automatic Diacritizer which took over 10 years for completion.
Further, the company obtained three patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the field of Arabic language for automatic pronunciation and automatic translation.
Besides, Al-Sharekh established the "Book in Newspaper" project in 1997 in collaboration with UNESCO. He was one of the contributors to the "Center for Arab Unity Studies" and the "Arab Organization for Translation." He was also one of the contributors to the establishment of the "Arab World Institute" in Paris.
In 2016, he started his major project "Al-Sharekh Archive" for Arabic literary and cultural magazines, making them available on the internet.
Al-Sharekh served as a Deputy Director General for the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development from 1969 to 1973, and as representative of Kuwait and Arab Group of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (I.B.R.D), Washington D.C. from 1973 to 1975 and co-founded and chaired the Board of Directors of the Industrial Bank of Kuwait, among other key positions.
In 1968, Al-Sharekh published his first story titled "Qais and Layla". He also has three published collections of short stories, and a novel titled The Family, published in 2018, among other works.