Syrian refugee’s application marks Google event in California

Mojahed Akil elaborated on the details of his application, “Gherbtna” (Our Migration), which helps Syrian refugees in finding houses and jobs with a teleconference speech as he could not acquire visa for the United States. 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said more than 7,000 people attended the 10th Google I/O this year, adding that a big developer group from Istanbul followed the event alive. 

In the event, during which the Istanbul example was underlined, the application, which was developed by Akil, who now lives in Istanbul, attracted huge attention. 

Noting that millions of Syrians had to leave their own country, Akil said: “There are more than 2.5 million Syrian migrants in Turkey. It was easy for us to realize small things back in Syria, but it is not that easy to do this in a different country. I asked myself what I could do for Syrian migrants in Turkey. The idea to develop Gherbtna was thus born.”

Akil added that the main purpose of the application was to help Syrians in a number of fields in Turkey. 

“For instance, Syrians who want to rent a car or a house can benefit from the application. They can also make contact with employers who seek workers via the application. Children who want to be enrolled in a school can also find information about what to do,” he said. 


‘Feeling like home’

“Syria will always be my own country, yet it is possible for us in this new place to feel like we are at home,” Akil said. 

Noting that he liked developing applications, Akil said: “This skill gives me the opportunity to do what I want. There is no limit or border before people who want to achieve anything.”

“We are very happy with our results in Turkey with our smart phone platform Android One,” Pichai said.

“Turkish General Mobile develops great devices for the platform. We can use these devices in more countries.”

Pichai also introduced Google Assistant, a virtual personal assistant, along with the tabletop speaker appliance Google Home, at the conference. 

He also unveiled Allo, a new messaging service that will compete with Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger products and feature a chatbot powered by the Google Assistant. 

Google’s other big announcement at the event was a virtual reality platform called Daydream designed to work with the Android mobile operating system.