About us

The HMI Story:
HMI is named after Haci Halide Balkas Mehmetoglu. Haci Halide was born Halide Balkas on May 6, 1929, in the village of Muradiye, known as Xincis in Kurdish. Her father was an outspoken proponent of education, as he was the first member of his family to attend higher education. Wanting all his children to be educated people, Haci Halide and her sister were the only two girls out of all the students at the village school, despite attitudes towards female education at the time. After her passing, her grandson Alan had the idea of commemorating his grandmother’s legacy through a charity project. He noted that although the World is becoming ever more digital, many children do not have access to educational resources on technology. Remembering his grandmother’s passion for charity and education, he created an initiative to provide Kurdish children, especially in rural areas, the resources they need to operate in a digitalized world. Naturally, he named the initiative after his grandmother, Haci Halide Mehmetoglu.