Berlin  /  Arabic language technology  /  Journalism

Journalist by training. Builder by necessity.

Award-winning journalist and AI product builder. A decade of investigative reporting in Arabic and English. Now building Arabic-English AI tools for newsrooms.

See what I build Get in touch
10+Years reporting
7AI tools in Onwan
11Funded projects delivered
5Awards and shortlists
Worked with, published or recognised by
00 / About

Three skills, one person

I'm originally from Morocco and based in Berlin, Germany. I build and ship AI tools for real users. My main product is Onwan, an AI editorial assistant for journalists that runs inside Google Docs. It is live on the Google Workspace Marketplace and incubated by DW Akademie.

Before Onwan I worked inside DeepL's Arabic training pipeline, correcting machine output line by line. Before that, and still, I was a reporter. I know newsroom workflows from the inside.

Language

Native Arabic

Modern Standard Arabic and Darija. Trained AI systems on English to Arabic for DeepL.

Product

Hands-on builder

Ships full-stack products with Next.js, Supabase and LLM APIs.

Editorial

Newsroom judgement

Ten years of investigations, from survey design to publication.

01 / Build

Products and builds

Tools I designed and shipped myself, from idea to real users.

Flagship  /  Founder and product builder

Onwan عنوان

One story, in order.

An AI editorial assistant for journalists, in Arabic and English. It runs inside Google Docs and takes a story from angle to publication: proposal, desk research, fieldwork plan, structure, draft review and claim checking.

It reads only the open document and writes back into it. The journalist stays the editor.

Add to Google Docs onwan.eu
Status

Live on the Workspace Marketplace

Languages

Arabic and English, full RTL

Stack

Next.js, TypeScript, Supabase, Anthropic API

Backing

DW Akademie, Media Loves Tech 2026

Civic tech  /  EN, DE

BürgerMapper Berlin

A Citymapper-style guide to German bureaucracy for expats. Anmeldung, tax ID or Kita become routes with steps, prerequisites and a Gemini AI assistant.

Media literacy

Editorial training tools

Breaking News Crisis Simulator, Multi-Perspective News Generator and News Story DNA Analyzer, for newsroom training.

Prototype  /  2024

SoulCanvas

Turns written memories into abstract visuals in six styles. Architected for image-generation APIs.

Automation

Workflow pipelines

n8n and Zapier pipelines for research and content processing, with AI-powered steps and Python scripting.

02 / Experience

Where I've worked

Apr to Jun 2026
Vienna

Researcher, Milena Jesenská Fellow

IWM, Institute for Human Sciences

Research fellowship within an international community of scholars, with access to IWM's library and research facilities. Wrote the essay "The right to exist in the AI age" for IWMPost, on human claim-making as artificial intelligence absorbs cognitive work.

2024 to 2025
Remote

Arabic AI Content Reviewer

DeepL SE, contract via Language Data

Identified, marked and explained errors in English to Arabic machine translation, and supplied corrected output for model training. Edited AI-generated Arabic, transcripts and dubbing material for grammar, clarity and cultural fit. Documented recurring error patterns.

2015 to now
Rabat, Berlin

Investigative and Data Journalist

Freelance

Original survey design and statistical analysis. Bilingual reporting in Arabic and English. Project management of cross-border investigations on migration, climate, AI accountability and culture. Eleven funded projects across seven funders, all delivered on time.

2022
London

Editorial Fellow

The Economist

Two-week fellowship awarded as part of the Michael Elliott Award.

03 / Writing

Selected reporting

Ten-plus features in English and hundreds of articles in Arabic.

The right to exist in the AI age IWMPost · 2026
Toxic Trade. How Europe exports its waste to Morocco and calls it recycling Untold Mag · 2026 Can mobile medicine solve the health crisis in Morocco's remote villages? Global Voices · 2024 How Climate Change Turned This Moroccan Village Into a Ghost Town In These Times · 2021 Morocco's biodiversity suffers as rich locals and foreign tourists hunt for fun Earth Journalism Network Barbary macaques. Moroccan ecological heritage threatened with extinction Earth Journalism Network

Also in African Arguments, the Knight Center, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Hespress and Sasapost

04 / Investigations

Collaborative investigations

Tracing the toxic trail of Europe's electric cars to India

  • Público, Spain · 10 June 2026 · SpanishEl rastro tóxico de los coches eléctricos fabricados en España contamina y enferma a la India
  • Follow the Money · 11 June 2026 · EnglishTracing the toxic trail from India's car factories to Europe's roads (The EU Files)

With Brenda Chávez and Varsha Torgalkar. Supported by Journalismfund Europe.

Customs data on 987 shipments, lab tests of water and soil, and fieldwork in Pune trace car parts from polluting Indian factories to suppliers of Seat, Volkswagen, Renault and Mercedes in Spain. After questions from the team, Indra blocked one of its suppliers.

Público Follow the Money

Toxic Trade: How Europe Exports Its Waste to Morocco and Calls It Recycling

  • Untold Mag · 10 June 2026 · English

With Federica Rossi. Supported by Journalismfund Europe.

Basel Action Network trade data, customs records and freedom-of-information responses show how European waste is relabelled to reach Moroccan cement kilns, while communities in Casablanca breathe the smoke.

Untold Mag
05 / Writing in Arabic

Arabic Archive — Ultra Sawt (2017–2019)

أرشيف المقالات بالعربية

233 Arabic features and analyses for Ultra Sawt on Moroccan governance, rights, society and culture.

  • Morocco & governance
  • Rights & press freedom
  • Society & culture
  • World affairs
Jul 2018

مكتبة الطغاة.. الكتاب الأخضر ومخطوطات الأنا الاستبدادية

 Oct 2018

الصحافة العلمية.. جسر العلماء مع الجمهور

 Dec 2018

الخطر الوجودي المنسي.. لماذا العرب هم أكثر المتضررين من التغير المناخي؟

 Jun 2018

المرأة في ريف المغرب.. طبقات القهر المركب
View full archive (233 pieces)
06 / Field

From the field

My best-known story is about Es-Sfalat, the oasis in Rissani where my family farms. About thirty of its two hundred families are left. The reporting combined family memory, environmental evidence and rural migration, and won the Michael Elliott Award.

Abandoned mudbrick village seen from the rooftops, desert and distant hills beyond
Es-Sfalat, Tafilalet. One of the abandoned villages of the oasis.
A wide dry riverbed of cracked red earth, with a line of palms on the far horizon
The Ziz riverbed
An arched wooden door closed within thick earthen walls
A gate closed on an empty house
07 / Recognition

Awards and fellowships

Awards

  • 2022Michael Elliott Award, winner. ICFJ with The Economist and The ONE Campaign
  • 2022Livingston Award, finalist, international reporting
  • 2023True Story Award, shortlist. Bern
  • 2022One World Media Award, nominee
  • 2020Investigative Reporting Award, winner. Prometheus Institute with Oxfam

Programs and fellowships

  • 2026Media Loves Tech, incubation for Onwan. DW Akademie
  • 2026Milena Jesenská Fellow, IWM Vienna
  • 2026Artistic Research Fellow, Folger Shakespeare Library
  • 2026Visiting Scholar, Toronto Metropolitan University
  • 2023Febrayer Fellowship, Berlin
  • 2022Editorial Fellow, The Economist, London
08 / Toolkit

Stack and languages

Frontend and app

  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • React
  • Next.js 14
  • Tailwind
  • HTML/CSS

Backend and data

  • Node.js
  • Python
  • PostgreSQL
  • Supabase
  • Stripe
  • Zod

AI and language

  • Anthropic API
  • OpenAI API
  • Gemini API
  • Prompt engineering
  • LLM evaluation
  • Arabic NLP and RTL
  • MT post-editing

Languages

  • Arabic, native
  • Darija, native
  • English C1
  • French B1
  • German A2
09 / Services

Work with me

Training and ready-made AI setups for journalists and newsrooms.

Training  /  Onwan

AI training for journalists

Written guides and live team workshops that teach journalists to use Claude, Gemini and other tools in their own reporting: fact-checking, interviews, grant writing and source research. Editorial ethics built in.

  • Training guides
  • Team workshops
Onwan services
Setups and consulting  /  EN, AR, FR

The AI Media Lab

Ready-to-use Claude Projects and Gemini Gems for journalists, installed in minutes. For newsrooms: workflow audits, custom AI editorial guidelines and adoption roadmaps.

  • Ready setups
  • Newsroom consultations
The AI Media Lab