«Karak Creativity».. A Hub that Transformed Passion into Innovations
Sponsored more than 40,000 children and youth over 16 years
Amman7 min read
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In Karak, the first story of the birth of the Karak Creativity Club was a beacon that immortalized the spirit of a young man who left life in his prime, and lit the path of thousands of creators from children, adolescents, and youth, breaking the centrality of creativity, paving the way for inspiring success stories that transcended the borders of the homeland and echoed globally and in the Arab world.
The story of «Karak Creativity» is a tale of hope that emerged from the womb of loss and pain that gripped the heart of Engineer Husam Al-Trawneh, who bid farewell to his son Ahmed at the age of eighteen after a traffic accident, after he was a top student overflowing with talent and passion, and a recipient of the King Abdullah II Award for the best student at King's Academy, so the grieving father extended his hand to every child and youth who had a spark of excellence, to create for them the incubator that turned their passion and dreams into achievements that defied the impossible.
The launch of the club was 16 years ago with very modest capabilities, a table and five chairs inside two rented rooms in Karak, with a zero budget, but despite the great challenges and skepticism about endurance and continuity, it was able to prove that it is a «laboratory of the impossible» and an incubator environment for creativity and innovation and a platform for launching the scientists of tomorrow, who needed an opportunity.
To understand the extent of the club's impact on the youth of Karak, we recount the story of the young man Wassam Al-Qatawneh, a sixth-year medical student at Mutah University, who was an embodiment of the success of this voluntary civil institution. He started as one of the club's pioneers, diving into the worlds of Arduino, robotics, and programming, where the support there was not just general advice, but he received intensive technical and practical training in scientific research, C++, and digital manufacturing.
Thanks to this practical upbringing, Wassam was no longer just a traditional medical student; he combined medicine with technology to establish the company «qlpco» as a technology manager, and innovated Internet of Things technologies to save heart attack patients, making the club the bridge that enabled him to refine his personality, to participate in the 2022 World Health Conference, the F.I.Y. Science Conferences, the Idea Factory, and today, Wassam stands out as a candidate for the «Stars of Science» program and the first-place winner of the Orange Prize for Community Projects.
As for Haitham Al-Ma'aytah, a second-year secondary student at the Martyr Saeid Al-Ma'aytah Secondary School for Boys, he had a passion for innovation since childhood, but he did not find an incubator environment that motivated him to develop his talent in the appropriate way, until he discovered «Karak Creativity» in 2021 to begin his journey of training and skill acquisition, which turned his talent in programming into an innovation that serves the environment and agriculture.
The first course in which Al-Ma'aytah participated was «Little Newton», through which he mastered the basics of creative thinking and critical thinking, engineering, and robotics, followed by Arduino courses in the basics of programming and 3D printing in the digital manufacturing laboratory affiliated with the club, which paved the way for him to start his innovative project idea with the design of «Dorn» for plant pollination.
Al-Ma'aytah's innovation mimics «The Buzz of Bees» using directed ultrasonic technology, where he is currently developing its third version, designing a large drone capable of controlling a number of small drones, which can expand the scope of the project to include different types of plants, not just those that can be pollinated using sound vibrations.
The journey of engineer Suha Al-Habashneh, a graduate of Mutah University, specializing in computer engineering with the club, represents another station for the club's role in discovering and supporting creators, instilling a culture of volunteerism and community service, leading to qualification and empowerment. Al-Habashneh, who started working at the club in 2015 as a volunteer and benefited from the courses it holds in entrepreneurship, the club's belief in her abilities nominated her to participate in a specialized course in programming electronic boards «Arduino» with Intel, which gave her extensive experience that she transferred to the club's pioneers.
Al-Habashneh's ambition did not stop there, and she continued to develop her abilities through the club by joining multiple courses in robotics, critical and creative thinking, to then work as a field executor within the Youth Leader for Change and Progress project, leading the club to include her in its cadre as responsible for scientific research, progressing from supervisor of the Jordanian Games Laboratory in addition to her duties as a trainer for robotics, programming, Arduino, critical and creative thinking, to today occupy the position of head of the Science and Technology Department and director of the Digital Manufacturing Laboratory, in addition to being accredited as an international trainer in digital manufacturing under the certificate granted to her by «Fab Academy».
The club's CEO, Engineer Husam Al-Trawneh, told $ in 2010 that the club was born and transformed from a personal dream rooted in the mind and conscience of the need to develop education from theoretical rote learning measured by the amount of memorization to scientific practical education based on critical and analytical thinking through a voluntary civil institution, which nurtures and supports creativity, innovation, and leadership, satisfies the thirst for knowledge, and unleashes creative energies in the broadest and most comprehensive sense of creativity.
He added that the beginning was very modest, many people thought that this project would not last long and others thought that a small city did not need a center for creativity and innovation, but I believed that creativity is not for the inhabitants of the capitals, but it may be born from any village and place if someone discovers, nurtures, and supports it.
He continued, today, after sixteen years of hard and continuous work and overcoming major challenges, perhaps the most important of which is the ever-present financial challenge, the club has moved from two rented rooms to a club-owned building, granted by the royal decree, consisting of four floors, including the digital manufacturing laboratory, the electronic games laboratory, the children's robotics and electronics laboratory, computer laboratories, the art studio, a media production studio, the business incubator, training halls, and offices for the permanent team to achieve the strategic goal of raising the skills and abilities of children, youth, and adults to keep pace with the tools of the age of science and technology we live in.
Al-Trawneh emphasized that the greatest achievement of the club, which has sponsored since its inception until today more than forty thousand people of different ages for free, is building the human being and teaching children and youth how to think rather than what to memorize, teaching them modern sciences, life skills, arts, innovation, competition, self-esteem, self-confidence, and teamwork, as we learned as a team that passion and the desire to learn do not retire, and that lack of financial funding and obstacles and challenges are not signs to stop but are tests of the extent of our belief in what we do.
The Creativity Club, which has changed the course of the lives of more than 40,000 children and youth, needs financial support today to remain alive, as the story of «Wassam and Haitham» is a clear cry that proves that supporting the club is not a passing donation, but a strategic investment in the medical and technical future of Jordan. How many more children and youth are still waiting for their opportunities there?
