Ahmed Al-Khabaz

Ahmed Al-Khabaz (born 22 April 1994), known as Hamed, is a Canadian computer programmer and entrepreneur who was involved in a controversial media story in his country back in 2014. The issue was his expulsion from Dawson College for exposing a security flaw in the school's computer system. He became a technology entrepreneur after the incident.

Early life Al-Khabaz was born to a Shia Muslim family who fled Iraq in the early 1990s. His father was educated as a doctor at Indiana State University, but had been imprisoned due to his religious beliefs when he came back to Iraq. As a member of the school's software development club, he was creating a mobile application that would allow students easier access to their personal information. In the course of the application development, he discovered that the college's online administration system, which uses Omnivox software, was vulnerable to hacking due to what Al-Khabaz cited as "sloppy coding". The software, a system widely used by Quebec's general and vocational colleges, was developed by a company called Skytech Communications.

The vulnerability exposed the personal information of over 250,000 students, including social insurance number, credit card numbers, home address, phone number, class schedule - basically all the information the college has on a student. It was reported to the college's director of information services and technology. Al-Khabaz was initially congratulated for his work with a promise from the school that the system would be fixed. This was how he was accused of cyber attack for being spotted in the Skytech system without prior notification from the system administrator. on account of his repeated and unauthorized attempts to access the college information system.

Hearing The story attracted national attention in Canada after it was published by the National Post. The school stood by its decision and cited how Al-Khabaz was repeatedly warned to cease and desist but failed to do so.

Technology entrepreneur After he was expelled, Al-Khabaz received numerous job offers from technology and software companies. These included a public offer from Edouard Taza of Skytech Communications who said that the student is “extremely bright”, promising a full scholarship to a private CEGEP and a part-time job at his company. Stay22 raised over $750,000 from various investors including Travelport, FounderFuel, Real Venture, and 7 Gate Venture. In 2024, Stay22 surpassed $500,000,000 in gross merchandise volume and was ranked 69th on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 North America.