for everyone.
serving people regardless of economic or social differences
nobody should be priced out, or left out
Umer’s mission is simple to say and hard to do: serve everyone, regardless of economic or social differences.
A good education, a safe walk down the street and a healthy place to live should not depend on how much money someone has, where they grew up, or what their body can and can’t do. Too often they do. Umer treats that gap as an engineering problem, and as his to work on.
So the question he asks of every project is the same: who can’t reach this yet, and what would it take to get it to them?
"Something that I have a hard time doing is privatizing or making a profit off of my materials. I am very free and education-access-based."
umer, in his own words
how it shows up
six principles behind the work
free by default
If a tool can be free, it should be. Access to education should never depend on what a family can afford.
built for whoever is left out
Start with the person the existing tools forgot: the student without a tutor, the person who can’t see the curb.
close to the community
Build with and for the people nearby: classmates, teammates, and the local environment they share.
share what you learn
Research and inventions matter more once they are explained, out loud, to anyone willing to listen.
works in the real world
A project is finished when someone is using it, not when it wins a trophy.
no one is the wrong audience
Income, background and ability are not reasons to be served second.
the mission, in practice
every project answers to it