11-Year-Old Moroccan Coding Prodigy Faces Online Backlash Over Accent

26 February 2019 – byAmine · 1 min read

While he was seen all smiles and very proud to participate in the Rachid Show, the very young and very talented Idder Moutia (11 years old) was mocked, not for his abilities but for... his accent. He would have been very affected by these racist attacks.

Last Friday, instead of being proud of our little Idder, to whom a Danish channel wants to devote a program by traveling to Morocco, some, to say the least racist, Internet users, having taken into account neither his young age nor his origins, took advantage of his efforts and his joy of speaking with the public to criticize... his Chleuh accent as well as his way of speaking, in short, nothing that is neither directly nor indirectly related to computer programming.

His uncle says he was very affected by it, which is understandable: "Instead of encouraging him, they destroyed him. Even though he traveled from Tiznit to Casablanca to participate in the show."

"It’s normal that he doesn’t speak Darija since he’s from Tiznit. He uses English to communicate with his brothers and friends and Amazigh to interact with his relatives," his uncle said.

At the 2nd edition of the DevFest developer festival, an event organized by the Google Developers group (Google technology fans), Idder Moutai had amazed the programming experts. And he learned English on his own. Just by watching movies and videos. Developer and perfect English speaker at 11 years old, who says better?

We’re very proud of you, Idder! Good luck...