Muscat – An Omani university student has helped turn a common academic challenge – difficulty understanding lessons taught in a conventional way – into an artificial intelligence-powered platform designed to make learning more personalised for students.

Ilmify, co-founded by Sultan Qaboos University student Nouf bint Abdul Hamid Al Shamli, is designed to personalise learning for university students, adapting educational material to individual needs rather than expecting every learner to follow the same path. The platform has already moved beyond Oman through several pilot projects.

For Nouf, who specialises in statistics and data science with computer science as a sub-speciality, AI is less about mastering the latest tool than understanding the data and systems beneath it.

“Statistics gives me the ability to read data, understand its patterns and predict its trends, while computer science gives me the tools to turn this understanding into actual, applicable technical solutions,” she said.

That thinking shaped Ilmify.

Nouf said the idea emerged after encountering academic material that was difficult to grasp when presented conventionally. What appeared to be an individual problem, she realised, reflected a wider challenge.

The team began developing a learning experience using large language models that could adapt to the student. Building the startup also pushed Nouf beyond technology into marketing, branding, budgeting and dealing with users, investors and partners.

The project has since appeared at local and international competitions, including the Falling Walls competition in Berlin, where the team represented Oman last year.

“Through this platform, we aspire to establish clear features in the future of smart education in the sultanate,” Nouf said, describing the longer-term ambition as an Arab educational model capable of competing with global solutions.

Her experience has also changed how she views innovation.

After winning an award for early problem detection, Nouf said she came to see identifying the right problem as more important than rushing towards a sophisticated solution.

For her, effective AI also requires domain knowledge, good questions and responsible use.

“The fundamental difference today is not between those who have access to AI and those who do not,” she said, “but between those who use it superficially and those who understand its mechanisms and leverage them to build meaningful solutions.”

Nouf believes Oman offers growing opportunities for locally developed AI products in education, health, infrastructure and tourism, where international solutions may not fully reflect local needs.

For young developers, she says, the next step is to stop thinking only as technology users and start building products for markets well beyond Oman.