About, at length
Murtdah Osman
/moor-TA-dah/
I write my name Murtdah Osman. You will also see it as Murtada or Murtadah, and some people call me Murtaza. The way it is actually said is moor-TA-dah.
Where I am from
I am Lebanese and Muslim, born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubai. Lebanon is where my family comes from; Dubai is the city that raised me, and the one I have built everything in so far.
School, more than one
I moved through several schools growing up, which taught me early how to walk into a room where nobody knows me and leave having made it mine. I finished high school with roughly a 92 percent average, an IELTS of 7.0 and a certificate of good conduct.
On a stage, often
I have hosted a lot of events. Principal's Day two years running, science fairs, invitations and ceremonies. Writing the script, holding the room, working to the minute with the leadership team. I was elected Vice President of my year in the Student Council, which is much the same skill in a quieter setting.
The environment part
I was a student ambassador for the Alliance for Sustainable Schools and a leader on my school's Eco-Committee, and I signed the sustainability charter alongside our leadership. The work earned a commendation from TASS and the DGRADE sustainability award. It is the part of my record I am least likely to bring up and most glad to have.
One that did not happen
In Ramadan of my final year I pushed for a charity drive with Bait Al Khair Society. Their Malabes programme collects clothes, shoes, bags, books and household goods and passes them on to families in the emirate who need them. The point was never the boxes. It was to get students giving while they are young, when the habit still forms easily, so that donating becomes something they already do rather than something they mean to get around to. It was announced in the High School Weekly Newsletter, in both the English and the Arabic edition, and I contacted Malabes myself. It did not go ahead. I am keeping it here because it is the one thing on this page I started rather than received, and because a record with nothing unfinished in it is not an honest record.
Cameras and edits
At NAJAH Dubai in 2024, in Grade 11, I walked the exhibition floor interviewing students from other schools about their subjects and their plans, then cut the footage myself. I have edited official school videos since. I like the part where a long, shapeless recording becomes something a person will actually sit through.
Working with AI
I completed One Million Prompters, the initiative launched by the Crown Prince of Dubai and run by the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence, which trains people in prompt engineering under the emirate's blueprint for AI. It changed how I approach almost every piece of work.
Buying and selling
As a teenager I imported drinks from the United Kingdom and resold them here, which is a small business but a complete one: sourcing, pricing, cash flow, and the discipline of knowing what a thing is really worth. Now I am taking NFC cards to shops across Dubai so a customer can tap once and land on the store's Google Maps page, ready to leave a review.
Doing it properly
I am in the process of getting an eTrader License in Dubai. It is the licence that lets a person trade from home under their own name, and it is what will let me sell my professional services legally: Google Maps services, websites and marketing. I would rather start with the paperwork done than explain later why it was not.
That is the long version. The short one is on the main site.
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