tech

Deir el-Balah, Gaza – A handful of electronic components, a few wires and a basic programmable circuit board are enough to bring a group of curious children around a table in central Gaza to learn about robotics.

Students at The Next Gen Team: Rising Robotics Engineer Project in Deir el-Balah learn how to integrate sensors into alarm systems, study robotics, understand how motors and drive units work, as well as get firsthand experience with programming.

The children’s research could save lives in the future. The robotics and early warning systems they are working on could make way for bigger developments such as early detection of gas leaks and fires or help rescue workers access hard-to-reach areas, such as victims trapped under rubble.

Today’s lesson will also teach students the sciences of the future and help them keep pace with technological advancements happening outside Gaza’s borders.

Before the war, students had access to schools, universities, incubators and training programmes to pursue an interest in technology.

With much of that infrastructure now destroyed or damaged during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, there are few places and tools for students to work with.

But their interest in robotics and will to learn are helping them maintain their skills and ambitions for the future, something they hope will be of benefit when the bombs stop falling on Gaza.

Hamza al-Atrash, 16, is a student taking part in the “Next Gen” project and learning how electronic components can be used to develop robots and early-warning systems. To do this, he is using an Arduino controller – a programmable circuit board which connects sensors – and some other electronics.

Students work with what they have, but a shortage of equipment and electricity outages make studying a challenge.

“We have capabilities and aspirations that we want to develop, and we try to take advantage of every available opportunity for learning and training,” Hamza tells Al Jazeera.

Hamza hopes the skills that he and his cohort learn in class will benefit his community and provide new opportunities for young people in Gaza.

“The lack of devices and equipment doesn’t mean we’ll stop. It pushes us to look for solutions and make the most of the simple tools we have,” he said.

The challenges facing these students are part of a wider disruption to Gaza’s technology and innovation sector.

Before the war, Gaza had several incubators that supported technology projects and startups. Bahaa al-Masri, head of the training team for the Early Warning Systems and Robotics Project, said it provided a rare bit of hope for children and young adults in the besieged enclave.

“These incubators provided an environment for training and development. They helped innovators and entrepreneurs turn their ideas and projects into prototypes and ventures,” he told Al Jazeera.

The war severely damaged this ecosystem: training spaces were lost, equipment difficult to find, and students and innovators left with limited opportunities to experiment and develop their ideas.

Although challenges remain, the trainers are continuing their mission of educating budding tech experts in Gaza.

“We have a generation of students who possess genuine passion and talent in technology and digital systems,” he told Al Jazeera. “They need the environment and tools to develop these abilities and turn their ideas into projects that can serve their community and their future.”

Education pays the price

The near-collapse of Gaza’s technology sector has coincided with the widespread destruction of the education system, with schools, universities and research facilities repeatedly targeted by Israel during the war.

Preliminary estimates from the Government Media Office in Gaza put direct losses to the education sector at approximately $4bn. Seventeen higher education institutions have been completely or partially destroyed since October 2023, preventing about 620,000 high school students and 90,000 university students from continuing their education.

Approximately 20,228 students and 830 teachers and educational staff have also been killed, along with 194 scientists, academics and researchers.

For students seeking to enter technical fields, the loss of such educational facilities and teachers means fewer opportunities to gain practical experience and hone their skills.

Before the war, the IT industry was one of the promising sectors of Gaza’s economy and a rare source of foreign income, said Ahmad Abu Qamar, an economic affairs specialist and board member of the Palestinian Economists Syndicate.

It was also an opportunity for employment for thousands of university graduates entering a job market with high unemployment, with roughly 80 percent of its economic activities directed towards foreign markets.

Abu Qamar estimates that the IT sector now runs at less than 25 percent of pre-war levels, while more than 70 percent of IT companies in Gaza have completely or partially halted operations.

But even if a company’s offices or equipment survived the war on Gaza, damage to digital infrastructure has also made it difficult for companies to continue functioning.

Prices of some technical equipment – including computers, mobile devices, servers, routers, fibre-optic lines, and cabling – used in the industry have increased by more than 600 percent due to the difficulties of importing devices during Israel’s ongoing siege on the enclave.

According to his estimates, about 30,000 IT professionals have lost their jobs since the war began. General unemployment is at nearly 80 percent and poverty at more than 90 percent in the enclave.

Brain drain

A severe shortage of vital IT equipment – such as storage devices, routers, and laptops – has been compounded by the destruction of supporting internet and electricity infrastructure, including primary and secondary networks, according to technology and digital economy expert Abdullah Altahrawi with the UCAS Technology Incubator. This makes the task of rebuilding Gaza’s IT sector an even bigger challenge than before the war, particularly with Israel’s more crippling siege on Gaza.

“The repercussions have extended to dealings with foreign markets, including the purchase of servers and electronic services, the management of digital accounts, the use of cards and e-commerce,” Altahrawi said.

Before the war, Gaza’s five main incubators provided training, mentoring, workspaces and support for tech startups. Perhaps most crucially, it also gave students a place to develop their skills, connect with foreign markets, and find job opportunities.

Just two incubators – the UCAS Technology Incubator, affiliated with the University College of Applied Sciences, and the Ma’an Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubator, have resumed operations since the October 2025 ceasefire. But their capacity has not managed to exceed 20 percent of pre-2023 levels.

Due to the damage caused by three years of Israeli bombing and a shortage of real estate, just 1 percent of technology companies now have offices, while only 10 percent of business incubators have an operational office space.

Companies looking to rebuild and universities ready to teach a new cohort of tech students have also been hit by a brain drain in the sector, severely hindering development and innovation.

“More than 80 percent of highly skilled and experienced professionals in the technology and digital fields have left the Gaza Strip,” Altahrawi said. “Gaza’s future is inseparable from its ability to restore and develop its technology sector.”

RIYADH: The Hedayathon event — a hackathon organized by the Presidency of Religious Affairs in partnership with the University of Jeddah — recently concluded. Participants were asked to come up with ways to enhance services for visitors to the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque.

The Hedayathon aimed to foster innovation and harness scientific and technological capabilities to develop solutions that enhance religious services and enrich visitors’ experiences, according to a report by the Saudi Press Agency.

The event brought together innovators, developers, students, academics, startups, entrepreneurs, and people interested in outreach (da’wah) and religious guidance.

There were three winning projects. First place went to the Madaar team for their Maqam Platform project, which won SR30,000 ($8,000). Second place — and SR20,000 — went to the Tala team for Every Signal is a Recited Verse, an idea aimed at serving people with special needs. Echo Tech’s Sanctuary Translator — a project designed to develop legal translation — took third place, winning SR10,000.

Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudais, president of Religious Affairs at the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque, stressed the importance of leveraging technology and innovation to develop religious services and make them accessible to visitors.

In remarks shared on the presidency’s X account, Al-Sudais said: “Serving pilgrims of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque is a tremendous responsibility. It requires intensified efforts and mobilized capabilities to facilitate their access to religious services, enabling them to perform their worship with ease and tranquility.”

Obaid Al-Mudhaff, the university’s president, said the partnership with the presidency represents a model of integration between field expertise, scientific research, and innovation, helping develop quality solutions to serve the Two Holy Mosques and their visitors.

Salem Areej, general supervisor of the Hedayathon event, said the initiative was launched not only as a tech competition, but also to use technology to better serve pilgrims.

The hackathon’s objectives included enriching visitors’ religious experience, developing religious translation solutions, maximizing communications and media impact, developing religious guidance tools, building platforms for teaching the Holy Qur’an and delivering scholarly lessons, answering worshippers’ questions, and facilitating access to religious services for people with disabilities.

Activities included panel discussions, an exhibition, workshops, and consultations.

The presidency also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Translation Association to enhance cooperation and develop multilingual religious content.

SACRAMENTO — Long the epicenter of the global tech industry, California is taking more action to shield its children, communities and workers from the threats posed by the very industry that’s become central to the state’s identity and enviable economy.

State lawmakers on Monday passed new safeguards around social media and artificial intelligence — and are poised to approve restrictions on data centers — at a time when technology has become intertwined with people’s daily lives.

Efforts to rein in the power of Big Tech extend beyond concerns that TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms are harming young children.

Unions and workers worry that AI will take their jobs, and lawmakers are trying to tackle privacy and safety issues as AI features get added into smart glasses and toys. Californians are concerned that the proliferation of data centers will increase their electricity bills and strain water supplies.

“There’s a heightened level of tech anxiety right now, and that manifests itself from social media to data centers to AI taking jobs,” said Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). “People are coalescing and they’re demanding that policymakers make change.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has previously vetoed some bills aimed at adding restrictions on Silicon Valley businesses, will still have to weigh in on whether to sign the pieces of legislation into law.

The Democratic governor has acknowledged the challenge of adopting regulations that protect the public without going too far and potentially stifling the technology industry’s growth, which brings critical revenue to the state budget.

“I think that’s the constant tension,” Newsom said in an interview earlier this summer. “We’re constantly sort of fighting that balance.”

The governor, who has close relationships in the technology industry from his time in San Francisco, said only a couple other states have attempted to regulate artificial intelligence like California. The state, he said, leads on regulation of social media.

“We’re not rolling over, certainly,” Newsom said. “We’re leaning forward, and we’re iterating. We will push the boundaries and litigate.”

The looming restrictions on social media follow a landmark Meta Platforms legal settlement aimed at making social media safer for young people. Parents, politicians and child advocacy groups are worried that social media is contributing to depression, anxiety, eating disorders and other issues.

The actions being pushed in the California legislature are more sweeping than that settlement, however. One of the bills passed by lawmakers on Monday, Assembly Bill 1709, would bar certain online platforms from providing an “addictive feature” to users under 16 years old and add ways to verify users’ ages.

Under the bill, prohibited addictive features include autoplay and feeds that display recommended content.

The addictive nature of autoplay and other features is “harmful, full stop, and that they’re not appropriate for the developing brain,” said Lowenthal, who authored the bill.

After watching technology “run free” in California for years, legislators are now seeking to “pump the brakes a little bit,” said Samantha Vigil, a UC Davis researcher who built a registry tracking social media legislation in states across the country.

“They want to reevaluate what is working,” said Vigil. “What is healthy and beneficial, and what is progress just for the sake of having a new iteration of something?”

All 50 states have introduced or passed some type of digital media or technology-related legislation, tackling smartphone use in schools, social media and chatbots, Vigil said.

Other countries have taken more stringent steps to limit social media use among young people. Australia banned social media use for those under 16, but enforcing the law has been challenging because young people have tried to get around the restrictions.

California isn’t trying to ban social media; instead, it’s trying to limit how platforms design their features.

Parents and state attorneys general have not waited for policy makers to act. They have sued Meta, Google and other tech companies over the alleged harms their products have done to young people.

In late August, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed to pay up to $17 billion and make child-safety changes to resolve a multi-state lawsuit alleging the tech company designed and deployed harmful features while misleading the public about potential harms. Meta and YouTube also lost a social media addiction lawsuit earlier this year in Los Angeles.

Assembly Bill 1709 goes further. For example, Meta’s settlement gives teens the option to pick a non-algorithmic feed and turn off autoplay but, unlike in the legislation, it’s not mandatory. The bill would also apply to other platforms outside of Meta. Meta declined to comment.

Tech industry and business group opposing the bill say it is too blunt and could cut off access to social media’s benefits, according to the bill’s analysis.

“The durable path is to enforce the targeted laws California already has and to strengthen parental tools rather than an overlapping framework whose scope can be redrawn by regulation,” said Robert Boykin, TechNet’s Executive Director for California and the Southwest.

California lawmakers passed another Lowenthal bill aimed at holding social media liable for harm caused to children. Under Assembly Bill 2, social media companies could face fines of up to $1 million per child for negligent harm.

California lawmakers this year also attempted to tackle two other perils of the technological world — the rapid development and implementation of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of the massive data centers that are essential to sustaining the AI universe.

National and state union leaders have urged California legislators and Newsom to protect workers from the threats of AI to replace workers, saying it posed an existential threat to the foundation of a healthy, productive democracy.

“AI must remain a tool controlled by humans, not the other way around,” said Sen. Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton).

The state Legislature on Monday approved McNerney’s bill, Senate Bill 947, which would bar employers from “solely” using automated decision-making systems to discipline or fire employees. If an employer primarily relies upon this system, a human must verify the decision.

Lawmakers also approved Senate Bill 951, introduced by Sen. Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-Colton), which would require employers to provide a 60-day advance notice to workers and local and state governments before AI-related layoffs. Lawmakers also approved Assembly Bill 1609, which requires large private businesses that serve customers to provide access to human customer service representatives and to disclose to use of chatbots.

They passed another bill by Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) that enacts a four-year moratorium on the sale and manufacturing of AI-chatbot powered toys over concerns that the technology can harm children.

On Friday, lawmakers agreed on a compromise on proposed legislation to regulate energy use by California’s growing data center industry, measures prompted by community fears about the massive complexes. Lawmakers say the legislation would help protect consumers from growing electricity costs driven upward by the sprawling facilities and to track the centers’ immense energy and water consumption.

At a June hearing on Senate Bill 886 to regulate data centers’ energy use, Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) said it’s just “a handful of companies that are gonna make trillions of dollars” from AI. They should pay for related utility infrastructure upgrades, she added.

“People, I would argue, are not even begging to use AI,” she said. “They’re struggling to figure it out to keep up with the times, but don’t even really want it.”

The California legislature is expected to vote on two of the bills to regulate the controversial industry within the next day.

Whether Newsom will embrace the legislature’s efforts to corral big Tech in California — in part of in whole — remains unclear.

Newsom last year vetoed a similar AI bill from McNerney to ban automated decision-making systems to discipline employees over worries that it could restrict companies’ ability to use customer ratings. That element was dropped in this year’s legislation.

Newsom last year signed Assembly Bill 56 that required social media platforms to display mental health warning labels to users under 18 starting in January 2027. But he also vetoed Senate Bill 771 that aimed to hold social media platforms liable if they amplified content that contributed to hate crimes and other violent acts, saying that the legislation was “premature” and current civil rights laws might be adequate.

Lowenthal said he’s heard from California families who are anxious about social media and seeking “relief” from their concerns about how the platforms are affecting their children.

“This is a kitchen-table topic,” he said. “I’ve yet to find a family with school-age children in the state of California, any corner of the state, that is not going through this right now.”

Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.

Aug. 24 (UPI) — On his first visit to Ukraine as British Prime Minister Andy Burnham promised Monday to share Anglo-French long-range cruise missile technology with Kyiv in its fight with Russia, saying Britain would stand with Ukraine until there was “a just and lasting peace.”

Burnham said European defense contractor MBDA would be authorized to declassify blueprints for the parts of the Storm Shadow/Scalp missiles that are made by Britain to help Ukraine build its own version of the weapon that Britain has for the past three years been giving to Kyiv.

The Storm Shadow enables Ukrainian forces to hit targets 150 miles inside Russia.

Burnham said Britain would join forces with France to build production plants in Ukraine following a similar pledge of help by President Emmanuel Macron, who also told Zelensky at the weekend that France would supply Kyiv with more anti-missile interceptors in the wake of a series of deadly ballistic missile strikes.

“On Ukraine’s 35th anniversary of independence, the Ukrainian people should be in no doubt: the U.K. is behind you today and for as long as it takes. I am proud of the contribution our country has made to Ukraine and I want the Ukrainian people to hear it directly from me that our support will not waver. After all, Ukraine’s security is our security,” Burnham said in a statement issued Sunday night.

“The friendship between our two countries will long outlast Russia’s illegal war. In both the fight and in the rebuilding to come, we will stand with Ukraine and deliver opportunities for people across both our countries. Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve. We will not back down until there is a just and lasting peace,” said Burnham.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov likened the missile plan to pouring gasoline on relations with Russia and warned Britain over “participating in this war” on Ukraine’s side, saying that the Russian military was actively collecting data to uncover and destroy any missile production sites.

“Britain is methodically and regularly adding fuel to the fire and methodically and regularly plotting to prevent any progress in the peace process,” said Peskov.

Burnham’s high-profile, public backing for Zelensky came as he faces challenges both from nightly Russian ballistic missile strikes and to his authority, amid calls for elections which have been suspended for more than four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

As well joining Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for Independence Day celebrations in Kyiv, Burnham was also scheduled to chair a meeting of the U.K.-France-led Coalition of the Willing for talks on providing more help to Ukraine.

Established in 2025, the focus of the 34 country plus Ukraine partnership is to provide security guarantees in the event a cease-fire agreement is reached, including providing a multinational force to support and monitor it from day 1, though not necessarily in the format of a traditional peace-keeping force.

The stand by Burnham, coincided with a similar pledge from from Brussels, backed up by a multi-billion dollar package of fresh European Union military aid.

“On Ukraine’s Independence Day, we show our unfaltering support. Today, we approved $7.1 billion for the air and missile defense systems, missiles, ammunition and radars that Ukraine urgently needs. Europe stands with you today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X.

The package is in addition to $18.7 billion already approved by the 27-country bloc, $9.7 billion of which has already been provided to Kyiv.

The government has announced investments of about 2.3 billion reais ($444.2m) to bolster its artificial intelligence ecosystem.

Brazil will invest about 2.3bn reais ($444.2m) to bolster its artificial intelligence ecosystem, splitting projects between United States and Chinese tech firms in a strategic move that underscores its efforts to balance ties with both superpowers.

Just more than half the total, 1.3bn reais ($251m), will fund a supercomputing infrastructure project in Rio de Janeiro developed in partnership with China’s Huawei Technologies and iFlytek, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva‘s government said on Thursday.

The infrastructure will be used primarily to develop large language models for general and sector-specific applications, it said.

Separately, about 1 billion reais ($193.1m) will be allocated through a tender for a supercomputer that Brazil expects to rank among the world’s 10 most powerful AI processing machines.

The machine will be installed in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, chosen for its energy potential. Lula attended an announcement ceremony in the state on Thursday.

The Reuters news agency quoted unnamed government officials as saying they expect US chipmaker Nvidia to win the tender. Science and Technology Minister Luciana Santos told the Folha de S Paulo newspaper last week that she anticipated the company would be the supplier.

“The strategy is not to depend on a single company, technology or country,” Lula’s administration said in a statement, adding that the investments are aimed at strengthening national sovereignty over data.

China, a leading player in AI, has expanded its role as Brazil’s largest trading partner. The US, meanwhile, remains the biggest source of foreign direct investment in Latin America’s largest economy despite losing market share in trade and recently imposing additional tariffs on Brazilian goods.

The investments will be funded by the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT) through phased disbursements. The government expects the supercomputer to begin operating by the end of next year, while the cooperation agreement with the Chinese companies is scheduled to start in July 2027.