Haarf
Project Overview
University
Year
About
Haarf is an inclusive Arabic literacy system designed for neurodivergent, bilingual, and underserved learners. It simplifies the language’s 100+ letter forms into logical, modular components children can build, hear, type, and talk through. The system includes a magnetic phonics kit, flick-input keyboard, and AI chatbot tutor. By turning everyday interactions into learning moments, Haarf strengthens decoding, confidence, and connection to identity. Pilots show improved reading skills across the UK, France, and UAE, supporting curriculum-aligned early education
Team
Professor Gareth Loudon
Supervising Professor
Maroa-Isabell Al-Sahlani
Maroa-Isabell works where Arabic letterforms meet code. An Iraqi–Swedish design engineer and founder of Haarf, a research-led ed-tech studio advancing Arabic literacy, pairing typography, linguistics, and human–computer interaction. Treating complex scripts (Arabic) as design systems, merging craft and computation to create inclusive tools for families, classrooms, and communities. She prototypes systems that let Arabic be learned by hand, heard through augmented reality, and typed via adaptive interfaces. Trained at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, she employs a transdisciplinary lens to frame literacy as a choreography between morphology and tactility, learner and tool, heritage and future use.
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