BEIRUT: When Bashar al-Assad was forced out of power by rebels in Syria, Jude Khouja and his Syrian friends in the US felt they had to do something to help rebuild a country dear to them after decades of brutal rule and conflict.
They spent the days after Assad's overthrow in December talking on WhatsApp about their options under the new rulers who said they want to establish a free market economy and open Syria for foreign investment.
"Everybody was excited," Khouja said. "Something kind of awakened in us ... a spark of hope kind of re-emerged.
"We're techies, we all have a Syrian heritage, we're in Silicon Valley. These were the three ingredients," he said. "Let's bring everyone together."
And so they did.
In just five weeks, they organised SYNC '25 – the first free and open tech conference in Syria in decades – that took place over two days in Damascus in February.
Such a gathering would have been unthinkable when Assad was in power.
The conference brought together tech entrepreneurs from across the once-divided country as well as Syrians from Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
Organisers said they hoped the meeting would catalyse the creation of 25,000 tech jobs over five years.
The tech sector has become a beacon of hope after more than five decades of autocratic, bloody rule by the Assad family and a 13-year civil war that laid waste to much of Syria.
Despite the buzz at SYNC '25, plenty of challenges remain, not least of which are the international sanctions that have been imposed on Syria for decades.
Mouaz Hakki, a Damascus-based tech entrepreneur, said the sanctions hinder Syrians from getting paid by foreign companies and discourage investors.
"If a client in the US or (European Union) wants to pay you, it should be simple, but it is very complicated," Hakki said.
Calls for sanctions relief
Syria's Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has called repeatedly for the lifting of Western sanctions that were imposed to isolate Assad during the civil war.
The West has begun rethinking its approach. Britain unfroze the central bank's assets and those of 23 other entities including banks and oil companies in March.
The EU suspended a range of sanctions in February, including restrictions related to energy, banking, transport and reconstruction.
But Hakki said everyday Syrians are still paying the price of the restrictions.
"We are talking about a society that has nothing to do with its government," he said.
"I am an individual, and I want to eat and drink, and I do not support anyone (politically). Why aren't sanctions removed on people like this?"
The sanctions also prevent developers from accessing tools and apps, meaning simple hitches like a VPN error or bug could cost them days of work, Hakki added.
Hacking the future
Syria's sanctions-hit economy is on its knees after more than halving between 2010 and 2021, according to official data cited by the World Bank in 2024.
But the bank said even that drop was likely to be an underestimate, citing its own calculations based on nighttime light emissions – a proxy for overall economic activity – that pointed to a 84% contraction between 2010 and 2023.
The World Bank reclassified Syria as a low-income country in 2018, and more than 90% of the 23 million-strong population live below the poverty line, according to UN agencies.
World Bank data estimated Syria's economy was US$23.63bil (RM104.84bil) in 2022 – roughly on par with Albania and Armenia, each with fewer than three million inhabitants.
Syrian entrepreneur and author Ahmad Sufian Bayram said Syrian startups are hampered by economic instability that condemns many to stagnate rather than grow.
He said, however, that while the tech ecosystem is small and concentrated in Damascus, there is huge enthusiasm for the sector's potential to solve some of Syria's entrenched problems.
In February, Bayram said he was surprised when 5,000 people participated in a hackathon he helped organise to solve challenges in areas ranging from infrastructure to agritech.
Participants signed up online and in person to write code and develop apps that could fix a range of problems, he said.
It might be a small start, but Bayram said he hopes Syria will one day rival the emerging tech hubs in the Gulf.
"Maybe we cannot compete in investments with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but we can compete in the back offices and support," he said.
"(Syria) is well positioned ... a lot of companies would come open here if we build the right infrastructure." – Thomson Reuters Foundation
