SORKEL SHEIKO

QAMISHLO – Firoz Khan, a daughter of Afrin city in Rojava who resides in the Austrian capital, Vienna, created a famous digital platform on social media and a YouTube channel bearing her name, through which she presents specialized content in the fields of discoveries, technology, and scientific research, such as her famous series "The New Birth of Science in Kurdish."

A Look at Firoz Khan's Journey

Firoz Rashid Khan is a woman from Afrin city. She began studying economics at the University of Aleppo in Syria in 2014, but her studies were disrupted and not completed due to the attacks of armed groups affiliated with the Nusra Front on the city. She was forced to migrate to Turkey, where she studied economics for four years in the city of Kilis. But this time, with the Turkish occupation of Afrin, she did not want to stay there and made a decision to leave Kilis in 2018.

Firoz Khan has always pursued her dreams. This journey led her to a university in Bologna, the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy, where she studied for two years for her master's degree on the global impact of wind and solar energy on countries' economies.

Since 2020 until today, she lives in Vienna and still carries big dreams, trying to harness science to serve the Kurdish people and humanity. After three years of learning German, she worked in a government institution responsible for providing basic financial support and professional support to job seekers in Germany.

Firoz Khan spoke to our agency about her distinguished and interesting work in serving the Kurdish people, saying: "I started my doctoral studies about a year ago, and I am now continuing to work on my thesis."

Creating the Character "Miss Mimi"

This month, Firoz Khan created an educational digital character dedicated to Kurdish children called "Mamoste Mîmî," meaning "Miss Mimi," using artificial intelligence technologies. Teacher "Mimi" has turned into a digital shield and loyal guardian that protects Kurdish memory and teaches new generations their language, culture, and traditions in a very easy and simplified way.

This step came in response to her desire to provide entertaining content that serves her language and people. She spent a full month researching and working until she prepared 10 video clips and began searching for a name for the character.

Firoz Khan indicates how she chose the name of this educational and virtual character: "During my search for a name, the name of our neighbor's daughter (Nehmat) came to my mind. Because it is a short and beautiful name, I felt it would stick easily in children's minds. I fed this name along with other suggestions to artificial intelligence, and the combination (Miss Mimi) appeared. Accordingly, I chose this name and designed a digital character that enters every Kurdish home, so that they can learn Kurdish from it and love it."

Hundreds of Thousands of Followers in Record Time

Firoz Khan explained her preference for the digital character over using a real child: "You cannot take a real child everywhere in the world as you do with Mimi. On the first day of publishing the first video clip, it reached four million people and received widespread admiration, and beautiful comments were written about it. Within just one week, the number of her followers exceeded one hundred thousand. At the same time, many families send me videos of their children watching Mimi passionately. Thanks to the platform, the door has opened for everyone to create and share videos in this style. My hope is that this momentum will increase on social media platforms, and that everyone will start sharing Kurdish content rich in the spirit of Kurdish identity."

Regarding the impact of the "Miss Mimi" project, which left a clear mark on the Kurdish people, especially children, she says: "Since I started working on the Miss Mimi character, I feel that my conscience has rested a little regarding serving my Kurdish language. If this work serves as a drop in a vast sea standing against the erosion of the language, then I will be extremely happy, and my hope is great that this giving will continue."

Regarding her future projects, she said: "I will continue to provide technical content and keep pace with technological developments through my YouTube channel with short clips (5–10 minutes) at a rate of 2–3 times a week. Although the launch of the project temporarily stopped the 'New Birth of Science in Kurdish' series, the studio is ready and I will resume it soon, with planning to produce long clips related to the Miss Mimi character."

The Project Requires Very High Costs

Firoz Khan spoke about the difficulties and needs facing her projects: "The things I want to accomplish require very high costs. If these videos were made in a foreign language, I would not have faced these problems, but due to my insistence on continuing in the Kurdish language, artificial intelligence tools sometimes give wrong translations, which forces me to remake the video and present it more than dozens of times."

She noted that artificial intelligence helps her greatly in her life and facilitates her work, but in return she spoke about the negative aspects of its use on humans: "Intellectually and health-wise, absolute reliance on artificial intelligence and trusting it in all details disrupts human thinking. When we face any problem, we do not exert our minds in thinking but immediately turn to asking via ChatGPT. For example, if a person goes to a place where there is no internet or cannot use their phone, how will they solve that problem and overcome it? Therefore, we should not trust artificial intelligence one hundred percent, but must create a balance between it and our lives."

Firoz Khan directed a message to the Kurdish people: "The Kurdish language is very important to us, and this era is the era of technology and digital. We must all continue to accomplish our work in the Kurdish language through artificial intelligence tools and intensify this effort, and not forget to support such projects. Because the Kurdish language is the language of technology, it is the language of the future, and the future lies in programming codes."