Hodba Khalaf (hodba)

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at WITS Web Innovations & Technology Services. 

A technology and open-source enthusiast, software product & project manager, open-source enthusiast, Drupal advocate, and I do coding for fun

I help digital businesses reach their ultimate potentials.

Thoughtful, creative, passionate, and pragmatic. I'm an entrepreneur and technologist with over 15 years of experience in building software products and teams. I am a co-founder of several start-ups and worked as a CTO, agile project manager, product manager, and Sr. Drupal developer.

The two main products close to my heart are Alvents and Jam3ty (My Uni); Alvents is a SaaS product for virtual events and corporate workplaces that we created during the COVID-19 pandemic to support organizations with remote work and event organizers with virtual events. It is a result of the collaboration between cross-function teams in multiple countries using the great Drupal 9 as a base of the product. And Jam3ty.com, which was my first start-up in 2004 as a college project at the Faculty of Economics - Damascus University. Jam3ty.com was the first student portal in Syria that provided a communication tool and essential education-related services as an online social platform for students that published students’ marks and results through agreements with Damascus University.

I have been fortunate enough to work with cross-functional, international teams. These experiences have taught me the importance of building trust relationships and how to communicate in a global environment, as it helps form the foundation of a healthy working relationship. I am a true believer that the best way to build trust is by being honest, open, and transparent with team members and the management.

I enjoy learning new things and connecting with people across a range of industries, so don't hesitate to reach out if you'd like to get in touch:
Twitter: @hodba
Email: [email protected]

Experience

• Established partnerships with international startups to use our solutions within their digital products with an approximate increase of 25% yearly.
• Led four cross-functional teams in 3 countries to build tens of websites and applications in the past 8 years.
• Participated in the efforts between WITS, Open Social and the Drupal Association to spread awareness of our contributions to the open-source Drupal community, highlighting our advanced Drupal integration with Zoom, BigBlueButton and RocketChat apps.
• Directed and managed the development and implementation of 2 SaaS products owned by WITS, including business models, auto deployment approaches, and technical implementation through well-defined roadmaps and product life cycles.
• Accumulated advanced experience in Object-Oriented programming, Drupal 7/8/9, hosting environments, business and systems analysis, agile project management, and product lifecycle management.