Case Study · Built for Samsung Gulf

KALIMA Lock

The first smart padlock that encourages children to learn Arabic — one unlock at a time. Every time a child picks up the phone, the lock screen becomes a tiny Arabic lesson.

01 The problem

Almost 70% of Arab children are more fluent in English than in Arabic. With English dominating both schools and homes across the GCC, Arabic was losing the one battle that matters most — daily practice. Kids weren't short of screen time; they were short of Arabic in their screen time.

02 The idea

Instead of another learning app children would have to choose to open, KALIMA Lock puts the lesson somewhere they can't avoid: the lock screen. A parent or teacher activates the app and swipes to set the difficulty; from then on, unlocking the phone means engaging with an Arabic word — its pronunciation, writing and meaning — before the games and apps open up.

03 The experience

The app lives where children already are. The lock screen presents the word; the child follows the pattern to trace and learn it; a correct unlock opens the device as normal. Difficulty scales as the child improves.

04 Design language

The visual world — playful mascots with expressive faces, warm gradients and chunky, child-friendly controls — was crafted by the Cheil MENA design team. Characters react to the child's progress, turning right and wrong answers into emotion instead of error states.

05 My part

I worked on KALIMA during my years at SpurTree Technologies, where I led technical delivery for clients including Samsung. My focus was the Android build that made the concept real: taking over the lock screen reliably, presenting the word lesson, and handing the device back on a successful unlock — the kind of deep-platform work where the app must behave perfectly every single time the screen wakes.

06 Coverage

The campaign drew industry attention beyond the app stores.

• Android
• Java
• Lock Screen
• Ed-tech
• Arabic learning