The full dollar limit saga

If you feel like BML’s USD limits keep changing every few months, that’s because they do. But it wasn’t always like this.

Before COVID, things were simple. If you had a debit card linked to your MVR account, you could spend up to $600 per day on foreign transactions. Credit cards were even simpler — you could spend up to your full credit limit without categories, restrictions, or hidden conditions.

Then COVID hit, and everything changed.

Maldives is heavily dependent on tourism for USD inflow. When borders closed in March 2020, the tourism industry essentially came to a standstill. Tourist arrivals dropped sharply and GDP contracted significantly, with losses estimated between 11% to 30% according to the UNDP rapid livelihood assessment on the impact of COVID-19 in Maldives.

With tourism halted, USD inflows dried up almost overnight, while the country still needed dollars for imports, debt servicing, and essential goods. That imbalance created a severe USD shortage.

Banks, including BML, responded by rationing access to foreign currency.

In September 2020, debit card foreign transaction limits were reduced to $250 per month, with $750 allowed for Maldivians living or studying abroad. At that point, while restrictive, the system was at least predictable. You could use your limit anywhere without worrying about categories.

Soon after, BML began tightening controls further by blocking certain transaction types such as trading platforms and digital wallets.

In July 2021, credit card limits were increased to $500 per month, which is when many people started shifting toward credit cards as a workaround.

The 2024 “Financial Coup”

Things escalated dramatically in August 2024.

BML announced a complete suspension of foreign transactions on debit cards and drastic reductions in credit card limits. For credit cards, the limit would be reduced to 100 USD down from 750 USD for Standard and Gold cards and down to 500 USD down from 1,500 USD for Platinum cards. The public backlash was immediate, and the decision was reversed within hours.

The government claimed to have no foreknowledge of the changes and later described the situation as a “financial coup”, and a police investigation was launched — the results of which were never made public.

The fallout included the removal of Karl Stumke and the appointment of Mohamed Shareef as the new CEO, as officially announced by BML.

When “increases” started becoming decreases

After the leadership change, the pattern shifted. Announcements sounded positive, but the implementation became more restrictive.

In November 2024, BML announced that foreign transaction limits for students abroad had been increased to $1,200. On the surface, this sounded like a meaningful improvement. In reality, the change was far more restrictive than it appeared. Under the new structure, only $250 could be used globally, while the remaining portion of the limit was restricted strictly to the student’s country of residence. Access to this higher limit was also more involved — students were required to apply through a dedicated portal, as explained in more detail here.

What made this shift more frustrating was the contrast with how things had worked previously. Before this change, BML did not actively verify whether a student had returned to Maldives. Many people, including myself, continued using the $750 student limit even after completing their studies. My sister, who graduated in 2022, was able to keep using the $750 limit up until 2024. I graduated in 2023 with my Master’s from the UK and was also able to use the same limit without issue.

That changed in October 2024, when BML began actively monitoring usage. I received an email stating that my card had been used within Maldives for the past five months and that my increased student limit would be removed unless I reapplied within two weeks. It was a clear shift from a relatively relaxed system to one that was tightly controlled, with stricter verification and significantly reduced flexibility despite the headline “increase.”

The 30% fee era

In June 2025, debit card limits were increased to $500 per month.

But this came with a major catch. A 30% fee was introduced on platforms like Temu, Shein, AliExpress, Lazada, and eBay, effectively reducing the usability of that limit. At the same time, overseas ATM withdrawals were reduced to $125.

The $1000 limit that wasn’t

In November 2025, BML announced that foreign transaction limits had been increased to $1,000. On the surface, this sounded like a long-awaited improvement.

But once again, the details told a very different story.

What actually changed was a restructuring of limits rather than a real increase. The e-commerce limit was effectively reduced back to $250, while overseas PoS transactions were allowed up to $1,000. For travel-related spending, BML introduced a higher allowance, with flight and hotel bookings permitted up to $3,000, and an overall maximum cap also set at $3,000.

To be fair, the travel limits were genuinely helpful. Being able to spend up to $3,000 on flights and hotels addressed a real need and was one of the few changes that actually improved usability for customers planning travel.

However, for everyday online usage — which is what most people rely on — nothing really improved. In fact, it became more restrictive.

What made the situation worse was that the BML spokesperson publicly denied that a $500 unrestricted limit had ever existed since COVID, despite many users having experienced exactly that period when the $500 limit applied more broadly.

By this point, the pattern had become clear: headline increases, but tighter controls underneath.

The credit card “increase” that reshuffled the same limits

In February 2026, BML announced that credit card USD limits had been increased. On paper, the numbers looked better. In practice, it was another restructuring that didn’t actually improve real-world usage.

Instead of a single flexible limit, BML split the limit into two separate buckets: one for e-commerce and one for PoS transactions.

For Classic cards, the new limits became $700 for e-commerce and $700 for PoS, giving a combined total of $1,400. Previously, Classic cards had a single unrestricted limit of $750. This meant that while the total appeared higher, the usable online limit was actually reduced from $750 to $700.

For Gold cards, the limits were set at $750 for e-commerce and $750 for PoS, totaling $1,500. Previously, Gold cards had a $750 unrestricted limit. So while the total doubled on paper, the actual e-commerce limit — which is what most people rely on — remained exactly the same.

For Platinum cards, the limits became $1,500 for e-commerce and $1,500 for PoS, totaling $3,000. Previously, Platinum cards had a $1,500 unrestricted limit. Again, the total increased, but the usable online limit did not change.

So in reality, there was no improvement for Gold and Platinum users when it came to online spending, and Classic card users actually saw a reduction in flexibility. The headline numbers increased, but the part that mattered most for everyday use stayed the same — or got worse.

May 2026: Tightening the screws even further

Coming to the present day, BML introduced another round of changes in May 2026, announcing a new set of measures that added even more layers of restriction.

One of the most noticeable changes is a hard cap on usage frequency. Debit card users are now limited to a maximum of 30 online transactions per month per customer. This means even if you still have available USD limit left, you could be blocked simply for exceeding the number of transactions.

On top of that, BML is introducing daily quotas on popular e-commerce platforms such as Temu. So even within your monthly limit, you may not be able to complete transactions if daily thresholds are reached.

The most controversial change, however, is the restriction on overseas usage. Debit cards can no longer be used abroad unless the cardholder is physically outside the Maldives, with verification done using Immigration travel data. In other words, even legitimate overseas transactions can be declined if the system detects that you are still in the country.

This raises serious concerns around privacy. For this to work, travel data from immigration has to be shared and used to control financial access. What made this even more concerning is that both BML and Immigration updated their respective terms and privacy policies after the fact, effectively formalising access to this data only once the system had already been introduced. For many users, this felt like a breach of trust — not just because of the restriction itself, but because of how it was implemented.

At this stage, the system has evolved from a simple monthly cap into a tightly controlled framework with limits on amount, category, frequency, platform, and even your physical location.

So that’s the background. What can you actually do?

At this point, most people are understandably fed up with BML. Limits keep changing, rules keep shifting, and what gets announced doesn’t always match reality.

So the real question becomes: how do you actually make online transactions today?

Bank of Maldives (BML)

Do you earn USD income?

If you earn in USD — or somehow have access to USD at bank rate — then honestly, none of this is really your problem.

With USD account-linked Visa Platinum Debit Cards, you can spend up to $5,000 per day.

With USD credit cards, you can spend up to your full credit limit.

For most people though, that’s not a real solution. Not everyone is a resort tycoon earning thousands of dollars a month.

BML Credit Cards

For the average person, this is currently the most practical workaround within BML.

BML credit cards offer higher foreign transaction limits and fewer restrictions — importantly, they do not apply the 30% fee on platforms like Temu.

Limits

• Classic Card: $700 e-commerce limit
• Gold Card: $750 e-commerce limit
• Platinum Card: $1,500 e-commerce limit

Eligibility

Minimum monthly income requirements:

• Classic Card — MVR 4,000
• Gold Card — MVR 23,130
• Platinum Card — MVR 46,260
• World Card — MVR 128,500
• Infinite Card — MVR 231,300

Income must be routed through BML consistently for at least 6 months, with satisfactory performance of existing facilities.

Full requirements are detailed here.

Benefits

You also get additional perks:

• Free travel insurance
• Rewards points via BML Rewards that can be redeemed for flights, hotels, and vouchers
• Complimentary lounge access through Priority Pass with Platinum cards (guests are chargeable)

Important things to understand

Credit cards are not debit cards.

With debit cards, money is deducted immediately. With credit cards, every transaction adds to a bill that you must settle later.

• You get around 21 days to settle your bill
• If you don’t pay in full, interest is charged
• ATM withdrawals are treated as cash advances with high fees

If used carelessly, you can end up in debt very quickly.

The safest way to use a credit card is to treat it like a debit card. After every transaction, immediately pay off that amount. That way you never accrue interest.

If you’re concerned about riba, BML also offers Islamic (Sharia-compliant) credit cards.

One very important warning: avoid using your credit card for local MVR transactions.

BML bills in USD, and their conversion rates work against you. For example, a MVR 1,542 transaction might be billed as around $101.45 instead of $100. When you repay in MVR at 15.42, you end up paying more than the original amount. The same applies for other foreign currencies — additional fees (sometimes around 10%) and poor exchange rates apply.

Also note: limits reset on the 1st of every month.

BML Business Debit Cards

If you run a business, this is another way to increase your usable limit.

With a BML Business Debit Card, you get an additional $250 monthly limit on top of your personal card.

If you have multiple businesses — for example a Sole Proprietorship and a Company — you can get separate cards for each. Company accounts can also issue cards to multiple nominees.

In practice, this means you can stack multiple $250 limits if structured properly.

Maldives Islamic Bank (MIB)

MIB Visa Platinum Debit Card

For USD accounts, MIB offers a Visa Platinum Debit Card with significantly higher limits:

• $10,000 for PoS
• $25,000 for ATM withdrawals

This is one of the highest limits available locally.

You also get lounge access through LoungeKey, although it’s paid — around $35 per visit per person, including yourself.

MIB9 Visa Everyday Card

If you route your salary through MIB, you can get a MIB Visa Everyday Card.

• $250 monthly foreign transaction limit
• Limit resets on the 15th of every month

Commercial Bank of Maldives (CBM)

CBM USD Visa Debit Card

CBM also offers USD Visa Debit Cards that can be used for foreign transactions.

CBM MVR Visa Credit Card

CBM provides MVR Visa Credit Cards with a $750 monthly foreign transaction limit.

Requirements

• Minimum income: MVR 15,000
• Typically requires salary to be credited to CBM

In practice, it is sometimes possible to qualify by providing salary slips and bank statements instead even if your salary isn’t routed to CBM.

Your account must be at least one month old before the card is issued. You can apply for the card when opening the account.

For current accounts, a referral from an existing CBM customer is required. Savings accounts do not require referrals, and CBM also offers non-interest-bearing savings accounts if you want to avoid riba.

Important caveats

CBM has a few important differences:

• Exchange rate is around MVR 15.81 MVR 16.66 (as of 1st July 2026) per USD (higher than the standard 15.42)
• Limits do not reset monthly on a fixed date

Instead, each transaction resets after 31 days.

For example:

• Spend $100 → remaining limit becomes $650
• After 31 days → the $100 is restored

This means you need to carefully track your usage and timing.

As with all credit cards, the same advice applies: pay immediately after each transaction to avoid interest.

Other banks

These are the banks I personally use and am familiar with. If you know other banks or cards in Maldives that allow foreign transactions with MVR accounts, feel free to share — there are likely more workarounds out there.

Conclusion

The USD situation in Maldives doesn’t look like it will resolve anytime soon.

Tourism has declined, partly due to global instability such as the 2026 Iran war.

From 2025, mandatory USD conversion policies were introduced for USD-earning businesses.

But this still hasn’t fully resolved the issue — largely because a significant portion of USD is being used to service foreign debt, including $500 million sukuk repayments.

Final thought

At this point, the biggest issue isn’t just the limits.

It’s trust.

If limits can’t be increased, that’s understandable given the situation. But don’t present reductions as increases. Don’t hide restrictions in fine print. Don’t change the rules and then explain them later.

Just be transparent.

As always, the end of the year calls for reflection — and my annual New Year blog post paired with light graffiti. This year felt particularly full: me and my wife’s complete year living together as a married couple, a year that began with anxiety and ended with relief, and a year where AI continued to weave itself deeper into both my professional and personal life.

So, without further ado, here’s my 2025.

Life & Marriage

2025 marked our first full year living together with my wife, and Alhamdhlillaahi, that alone made the year deeply meaningful. Living together full-time is very different from visits, short stays, or long-distance phases. You slowly settle into routines, learn how the other person handles stress, and start appreciating the small everyday comforts that come from simply being together.

Me and wife enjoying the Eid decorations

After my wife returned from her internship, she wanted us to spend more time together as a couple. So she was relaxing at home for a couple of months before accepting any job offers. However, things became complicated when we suddenly discovered that MMDC had quietly reduced the required duration to obtain a permanent medical license from one year to six months, without any public announcement. This posed a serious problem. Because of the limited exam windows each month, this change meant my wife would effectively have only one attempt to sit for her licensing exam before her provisional license expired.

That was obviously not reasonable.

After carefully reviewing the regulations, timelines, and implications, I ended up making a formal legal and procedural argument to MMDC on her behalf, highlighting how legally questionable, unfair and impractical the situation was, especially given the lack of prior notice. Alhamdhlillaahi, the response was positive. MMDC granted an additional six months to all provisional license holders, and the change was later formally gazetted, making national news in the process.

The irony of it all was that my wife didn’t even need the extension. Alhamdhlillaahi, she sat for the licensing exam and aced it on her very first attempt, and by April, she had secured her job.

This year also brought loss, as my wife’s grandfather passed away in October after a long and difficult battle with chronic illness over the past three years.

Travel

Passing over some rail tracks in Cochin

Our first trip of the year was a three-day visit to Cochin in February, travelling with my in-laws primarily for medical reasons. This was my first time in South India, having previously only visited Delhi. The trip started with a small frustration when we realized that Maldivians travelling visa-free can’t buy local SIM cards, making basic things like navigation and ride-hailing unnecessarily difficult. India really needs to address this.

Once we settled in, Cochin surprised me in many good ways. The malls were genuinely impressive, the food scene was enjoyable, and we made the most of hopping between different eateries. One of the most emotional moments of the trip was visiting my five-year-old cousin, who was staying in India undergoing treatment for leukemia. Alhamdhlillahi, he has since recovered and returned to Maldives.

My wife and I stayed only two nights, as we had initially booked the tickets assuming she would already be working by then. The rest of the family stayed close to ten days, and after returning to Maldives, we stayed at my in-laws’ place to “babysit” my brother-in-law until everyone returned.

Beautiful beach wedding in Bandos

February also included a lovely evening trip to Bandos for a close friend’s wedding, which was short but memorable.

In April, we celebrated Eid together with my wife and family for the first time, something that felt especially meaningful now that we were living together.

In September, my wife and I went on a one-night trip to Adaaran Prestige Vaadoo. Originally, we were meant to visit Villa Nautica with the rest of the family, but by the time her leave was approved, the resort was fully booked. We decided to turn it into a private getaway instead, and it turned out to be perfect. It was our first time staying in an overwater bungalow, and by chance, we met a relative working at the water sports centre there. He took us snorkeling, where we saw countless fish and even eagle rays, and even gave us a free SeaBob ride. The food was excellent, and overall it was one of the most relaxing trips we’ve taken together.

Beautiful Vadoo Resort

In October, I travelled to my island for a work trip to conduct AI workshops for the school and council. What was meant to be a three-day trip turned into five days due to bad weather and flight availability — a gentle reminder that island travel still runs on its own schedule. This was an especially unique trip as this was the first time I was travelling to my own island on an official capacity. And it was the first time I travelled away from my wife since she had returned from her internship.

We got to see the beautiful new Terminal 1 at VIA on our trip to Coimbatore

November brought a more worrying trip. My wife began experiencing wrist pain, and given her history of a ganglion cyst excision, further MRI scans in Maldives raised concerns. Three orthopaedic surgeons suspected Kienböck disease, which was understandably frightening. We were referred to a wrist specialist abroad, so in December, we travelled to Coimbatore with my wife and mother in law. The journey itself was long, involving a flight to Cochin followed by a three-and-a-half-hour Uber ride to Coimbatore.

After additional MRI scans, Alhamdhlillaahi, it turned out that it was not full Kienböck disease, and surgery was not required at the moment. The doctor recommended immobilizing the wrist for three months, with one month in a cast. Since surgery wasn’t needed, we cut the trip short. On our final night, we had dinner at Radisson Blu Coimbatore, enjoying an all-you-can-eat kebab feast that felt like a quiet celebration. On the way back to Cochin, we hired the same Uber driver, who turned out to be a former software developer and had given me his contact, before flying back home to Maldives.

Academics & Achievements

Me speaking at various events and functions this year

January began on a positive note with my appointment to the ICT Sector Council by MNSDA. Throughout the year, I worked closely on approving curriculum for the National Diploma in AI, represented MNSDA at the Tech4Ed Digital Maturity Assessment Workshop workshop focused on education technology policy, and later contributed to the ongoing development work of AI Certificate Level 3 and Level 4 curricula.

In February, I had the opportunity to be a panel member in a breakout session on careers in science at Ghiyasuddin International School’s careers fair, and I hope I was able to inspire at least a few young minds along the way.

Mid-year, I was given the opportunity to write a book chapter on AI for Small Island Nations. I submitted my chapter in July, and I’m currently awaiting its publication, In Sha Allah.

In October, Yameen and I gave a talk at IGF 2025, where we shared how we built models for DhivehiGPT and discussed the challenges of working with low-resource languages.

Me receiving the President’s Special Award for High Achievement

November marked a major personal milestone when I received the Presidential Award for Special Achievement for securing first place in my MSc in Artificial Intelligence back in 2023. I was especially grateful that my wife and sister were able to attend with me. Two days before the award ceremony, my motorcycle had been towed — which resulted in the slightly absurd experience of visiting the tow yard wearing a suit.

Me at the tow yard in a suit

Javaabu

Me and Jailam at the MSME Awards 2025

2025 was a challenging yet successful year for Javaabu. During the year, two long-term team members and one newer member left, while three new members joined. Despite staffing challenges, we delivered more than ten major projects, including the AGO Website, Uthahi Waste Management Database, MSS Website, Ministry of Agriculture Website, Ministry of Environment website upgrades, Maldives Protected Areas website upgrades, and the ISLET Project Knowledge Repository.

Some projects experienced delays due to staffing changes, but the new team members stepped up well. Cashflow remained a persistent challenge due to government payment delays, and we were honestly kept afloat by DhivehiGPT revenue. There were moments where Jailam and I had to loan money to the company until payments were finally received.

This year, Javaabu also played a more visible role in contributing to national AI and technology policy discussions. A particularly proud moment was when Jailam was selected to join the Maldivian delegation to Estonia, representing the private sector alongside the President — a strong signal of growing trust in local technology companies. We were also given the opportunity to participate in policy discussions around the President’s newly announced Maldives 2.0 plan, allowing us to share perspectives from the ground and contribute to shaping the country’s digital future.

Apart from all the community outreach work we did, 2025 was also an important year for Javaabu’s CSR efforts. We were proud to sponsor Disc Wars 2025, a frisbee tournament organized by the Ultimate Frisbee Association of Maldives, as well as the Uligan Cup Men’s Futsal Tournament 2025 organized by the Secretariat of the Uligan Council. On the social impact front, we provided free DhivehiGPT subscriptions to the Blind and Visually Impaired Society of Maldives, enabling them to use the platform for their administrative work, and also extended free access to DhivehiGPT for Dhivehi PhD students and selected student publications to support research and language development. We also took part in the Ghiyasuddin International School Work Experience Program 2025, where two students joined us for a week, getting a small but meaningful glimpse into the kind of work we do at Javaabu.

Me with the team at the Javaabu Annual Dinner 2025

Strategically, we’re now actively pivoting towards product-based work rather than relying purely on projects. The year also brought several proud moments: Jailam received a Presidential Recognition Award for ICT, Javaabu won the Next-Gen MSME Award, we held our Annual Dinner at Barceló Nasandhura, introduced health insurance for staff and their dependents, and issued annual bonus notices to the team.

DhivehiGPT & AI

Demoing our AI Avatar Kaidha to the President and First Lady at our stall at Maldives Expo 2025

DhivehiGPT became an even more central part of my life and Javaabu in 2025. We started the year with around 43,000 users and ended with over 96,000, approaching the 100,000 mark! We crossed one million prompts in May and reached two million prompts by the end of the year.

Me receiving one of the awards at Maldives Expo 2025 on behalf of Javaabu and DhivehiGPT

In March, we launched the OCR feature, and throughout the year, we participated in numerous expos and events. At Maldives Expo in May, we had a large and extremely popular stall, even receiving a visit from the President, and we were honoured to win three awards. We also attended the EduTech Expo at MNU in September, where we gave out DhivehiGPT merchandise, and later the Vara Expo in November.

We conducted AI awareness sessions across many islands, mostly led by Jailam, while I personally visited institutions such as Majeediyya School, Visit Maldives Corporation, Uligan School, and Uligan Council. Over the year, sessions were held in islands including L. Gan, HA. Hoarafushi, Adh. Mahibadhoo, HA. Uligan, Ga. Maamendhoo, Malé’, Sh. Bilehfahi, R. Maduvvari, and N. Maafaru.

We were also featured in a Chinese Law & Journalism magazine, discussing AI policy in South Asia. Alongside this, we had countless meetings advocating for policy changes to support Dhivehi AI technologies. Towards the end of the year, we started an AI research group at Javaabu, and In Sha Allah, we hope to see publications emerge from this work in the coming year.

Online Activism

I became noticeably more vocal online this year. Frustration over payment delays eventually led me to tweet about the issue, which, interestingly enough, resulted in the problem being resolved. I’ve generally become more active on Twitter, particularly on policy and governance issues.

The image that became viral

During a government rally in November, I manually counted the attendees and tweeted the figure after the President claimed a much higher number. The tweet went viral, as my count showed around 5,500 people compared to the claimed 13,000. It also resulted in calls to me and some relatives from people in the administration itself, seemingly having hit a particularly sensitive nerve. Over the year, I also wrote blog posts about the new terminal, housing discrimination, and housing eligibility criteria, and spoke at the President’s meeting with SMEs. I used these platforms to advocate for better USD online transaction limits, fairer talent practices between SOEs and the private sector, improved health insurance options for SMEs, and clearer drone regulations. It turns out you really do just have to ask; on the last day of the year, Allied Insurance announced group health insurance plans for SMEs.

Photography & New Year’s Photo

I’ve been somewhat distant from photography this year due to work and an overall busy schedule. My wife recently gifted me a brand new drone, but unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to fly it thanks to regulatory bureaucracy.

This year’s New Year photo was taken at newly reclaimed Hulhumalé Phase 3. Since my wife was on duty, my nephew, my sister, and her fiancé stepped in to help with the photoshoot, making it a small family effort to keep the tradition alive.

Hope you enjoy the photo. You can download the full resolution image from my Flickr.

As always, thank you for reading.
In Sha Allah, may 2026 be even more blessed, peaceful, and successful for all of us.

Cheers, and Happy New Year 2026!

But beneath the surface of its promises, Binveriyaa revealed a serious flaw — systemic discrimination against Maldivians who had, by birth or circumstance, ever been registered outside Malé. The controversy surrounding this exclusionary design quickly became one of the most divisive political issues of the period and is widely seen as one of the key reasons President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih lost the 2023 election, as many voters viewed Binveriyaa as a symbol of inequality and unfair governance.

Background: The Origins of the “Malé Land” Argument

For years, some residents with permanent addresses in Malé have argued that since citizens of other islands receive free land from their home islands, they too deserve free land from the Malé area — including Hulhumalé, Gulhifalhu and Giraavaru Falhu. The MDP government’s Binveriyaa scheme seemed to respond to this demand by offering free land plots to Malé residents.

However, the eligibility rules went much further than most realized. Only individuals who had never held permanent residency in any other island — not even temporarily — were eligible to apply.

This meant that thousands of citizens who were born in Malé or moved here, grew up there, and lived their entire lives in the capital, were suddenly excluded from applying simply because their ID card listed another island as their “permanent address.”

The Constitutional Contradiction

The Maldives Constitution is clear about citizens’ rights to movement, residence, and equal access to state benefits:

Article 41 – Freedom of Movement and Establishment
(a) Every citizen has the freedom to enter, remain in, and leave the Maldives, and to travel within the Maldives.
(b) Every citizen has the right to move to, and take up residence on, any inhabited island of the Maldives.
(c) Every citizen shall have equal access to the receipt of rights and benefits from any island where he has established residency.

By design, Binveriyaa violated these principles. It discriminated not on the basis of residency or need, but on the historical administrative label of one’s permanent address. This is particularly striking when compared to the housing policies of other islands.

Fact-Checking the Myths

Claim 1:

“Malé people can’t apply for land from other islands. Other islands only give land to their own residents.”

Fact Check: False.
An analysis of gazette.gov.mv announcements for 2025 shows that 14 islands opened applications for free land this year. Among them, 10 islands (71%) allowed any Maldivian citizen — including those from Malé — to apply. Only 4 islands restricted applications to local residents.

Islands that has announced for free land in 2025

Claim 2:

“Islands only started allowing outsiders to apply after the Binveriyaa scheme.”

Fact Check: False.
Data from 2019, before Binveriyaa was introduced, shows that 10 islands announced land allocations that year — and all 10 allowed any Maldivian citizen to apply, regardless of permanent address.

Islands that had announced for free land in 2019

This shows that island councils were already practicing fairer, more inclusive housing policies long before Binveriyaa was conceived.

Conclusion: A Scheme That Missed Its Own Promise

While Binveriyaa was marketed as a policy for fairness and equality, it ended up being the opposite. Other islands’ housing policies — both before and after Binveriyaa — were more consistent with the Constitution, allowing all Maldivians to apply regardless of birthplace or registration.

Many islands do give additional points or priority to applicants who are currently living or working on that island — a reasonable approach that rewards local contribution without denying others the right to apply.

By contrast, Binveriyaa completely excluded anyone who ever had a permanent address outside Malé, even if they had spent their entire lives in the city. This made it discriminatory and unconstitutional, denying citizens both opportunity and equality in the nation’s housing landscape.

A truly fair housing policy must balance priority with inclusivity — rewarding residents while still respecting every Maldivian’s constitutional right to apply and establish a home anywhere in the country and not penalize citizens based on where their ID card says they are from.

With the grand opening of Velana International Airport (VIA)’s new terminal scheduled for 26th July 2025, there’s been a surge of renewed debate on Maldivian social media about the controversial decision to terminate the GMR airport deal back in 2012. People are asking: Was it worth it? Did we come out financially ahead—or did we lose more than we gained?

Despite all the noise online, I couldn’t find a well-sourced, data-driven article that looked at both sides with real numbers.

So I decided to dig into the data myself.

I’m not a financial expert, but I’ve tried to pull together publicly available figures and make this analysis as accurate as possible. For transparency, I should mention that I was a recipient of the MACL scholarship in 2013, after GMR was removed—so consider that a potential conflict of interest.

With that said, here’s what I found.

The GMR-MACL Deal: A Quick Recap

In 2010, the Government of Maldives signed a 25-year concession agreement with Indian infrastructure firm GMR and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad to develop and operate the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) (now Velana International Airport).  The deal was signed under dubious circumstances, with the then government reshuffling MACL board members who opposed signing the agreement and calls from other firms who participated in the tender to revaluate the bid.  Under the deal:

• GMR would invest $400 million to build a modern terminal
• Fund the project through a $27 Airport Development Charge (ADC)
• Operate the airport while paying annual concession fees to MACL (Maldives Airports Company Limited)
• The concession fees would be 1 percent of profit and 15 percent of fuel sales revenue from 2010 to 2014 and 10 percent of profit and 27 percent of fuel sales revenue from 2015 to 2035.

But in 2012, following political pressure and a court ruling that invalidated the ADC, the government unilaterally terminated the agreement, triggering an international arbitration case and a large payout to GMR.

GMR’s Projected Payments to MACL

While signing the agreement, GMR projected the following concession fee payments over the 25 year period:

• 2015–2020: $87.05M/year
• 2020–2025: $108.01M/year
• 2025–2035: $128.7M/year

According to these projections, over the full 25-year period, MACL would have received $2.26 billion in total revenue. Additionally, GMR paid an initial $78 million concession fee in 2010.

What Actually Happened?

After GMR’s removal, MACL retained control and is now completing a new terminal on their own—with the grand opening set for 26th July 2025, on Maldives’ Independence Day.

To finance this project, successive governments and MACL took around $400 million in loans. As opposed to popular narrative, these loans were taken mainly from reputable Islamic financial institutions rather than China, namely from Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, Saudi Fund for Development, OPEC Fund for International Development, and Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.

To understand how much money MACL would have made under the GMR agreement, I wanted to see how MACL had performed financially over the past 15 years, specifically how much net profit they had made annually and the amount of fuel sales they had made per year. I was able to find the relevant data from different sources online, for the fiscal years 2016 through to 2024. Unfortunately, full data could not be found for 2010 to 2015.

Here’s how MACL performed financially from 2016 to 2024 (based on publicly available data):

MACL Revenue 2016-2024

• Total profit: $422.31 million
• Total fuel sales revenue: $1.74 billion

According to the GMR agreement, for these years, they would have paid MACL 10% of the profit and 27% of the fuel sales revenue. So, if GMR had remained, MACL would have instead received $512.58 million in concession fees over this period. That’s $90.27 million more than MACL actually made in the same period after kicking out GMR.

So does that mean it would have been better off with GMR? But hold on, we need to look at some gotchas.

The Arbitration Factor

You will notice that in the revenue table, MACL was profitable for all years except 2016. What was the result of this loss only in 2016? Well, in 2016, MACL was forced to pay $271 million to GMR as compensation for the unlawful contract termination. This resulted in a loss of $85.21 million that year.

If that payout hadn’t occurred, MACL would’ve made around $65 million profit in 2016 (estimated based on subsequent years), pushing the total 2016–2024 profit to $572.52 million without GMR.

So, comparing the two:

• With GMR: $512.58 million in revenue
• Without GMR (adjusted): $572.52 million
• Net gain for MACL: +$59.94 million

So without the GMR agreement, MACL would have likely made more money over the same period, getting to keep 100% of the profit to themselves.

But What About the $78M Upfront Fee?

In 2010, GMR paid $78 million upfront—while MACL had earned only $21.4 million in profit that year.

That gives GMR a $56.6 million edge in 2010. If you factor that into the equation, the net gain for MACL shrinks from $59.94M to just over $3 million. But this does not factor in the years that data is missing for. Even if we do factor in those years, MACL would have likely still made more money without GMR in those years. This is given the fact that reports show that GMR was paying around $25 million in annual concession fees for 2011. Given MACL’s revenue trends for 2016-2024 and profits of $21.4 million in 2010 and $27.4 million in 2011, they would’ve likely made more than $25 million in profits per year from 2010 to 2015. And given that from 2010 to 2014, GMR would’ve been paying lower concession fee rates, MACL would’ve made more profits in those years without GMR.

The ADC and Terminal Financing

GMR’s planned $400 million investment was to be funded through the $27 ADC. But after a local court struck down the ADC in 2012, GMR began deducting ADC amounts from their concession fees—leading to reduced payments to MACL. This resulted in MACL having to actually pay GMR money instead of the other way round! Furthermore, GMR had taken $160 million in loans to fund the developments, with sovereign guarantees given by the Maldivian government. By the time the agreement was terminated, GMR had claimed that they had completed 25% of the upgrade plans they had planned to finish by 2014. However, given the scale of the current new terminal and other airport upgrade works, I am skeptical that the works that GMR had planned would come anything close to the current level of development.

If MACL had been collecting the ADC themselves from 2010 onwards, they could have made $285–300 million in additional revenue over the past 15 years. Combined with the adjusted profit and avoided arbitration costs, this would have allowed MACL to finance the terminal themselves, without taking on so many loans.

Fuel Sales Revenue Share

A quirk of the GMR agreement was the high percentage of fuel revenue they had proposed to share with MACL. Note that this is a share of revenue and not profit. So because of the high revenue share percentage, GMR was incentivized to keep fuel prices high so as not to make a loss on their part. High fuel prices would mean less airlines will likely refuel at VIA. This was something that GMR’s competitor Turkish-French consortium TAV-ADPM had noted in 2010 when the agreement was initially signed. TAV-ADPM had in-fact proposed a more feasible (according to them) revenue share percentage of 16.5%.

TAV-ADPM’s predictions actually did become true, with fuel revenues dropping in 2012 due to Sri Lankan airlines opting out of refueling at VIA after GMR had raised fuel prices. Moreover, a 25% drop in seat capacity was observed from 2010 to 2012 from European destinations, that the Ministry of Tourism had attributed to the high fuel prices.

Summing It Up

With GMR:

• Concession revenue (2016–2024): $512.58 million

• Upfront concession (2010): $78 million

• ADC revenue (lost to GMR): ~$285–300 million

• GMR investment (funded by ADC): $400 million (offloaded from MACL)

• Lost operational control of the main airport to a foreign entity

Without GMR (Never signing the agreement):

• Adjusted profit (2016–2024): $572.52 million

• Full control of ADC: Potentially $300 million revenue

• Had to take a $400 million loan for terminal development

• Retains full control of the airport

Caveats

• Full data from 2010–2015 is not publicly available, so this analysis focuses mainly on 2016–2024 and some partial data from previous years.
• ADC projections are estimates and actual numbers could vary based on passenger volumes.
• I’ve done my best to base this on published reports, media sources, and official statements—but there may still be gaps.

Conclusion

With the new terminal finally opening this 26th July, the story of GMR and MACL feels like it’s come full circle, especially with Indian Prime Minister Modi invited to be a special guest at the festivities. The Maldivian government chose sovereignty and control over a long-term concession—and while that decision came with a hefty short-term price tag, MACL may have just barely come out ahead financially over the long run. Terminating the agreement had resulted in potential lost revenue to MACL in excess of $146 million including the initial concession fee and subsequent annual concession fees.

That said, if the GMR agreement had never been signed, MACL could have likely financed the terminal without taking so many loans, and with greater profit margins while making more profits than under the GMR agreement. Moreover, since GMR was ousted, apart from the new terminal itself, MACL had undertaken major new developments, including a new runway, new fuel farm and cargo facility, and a new seaplane terminal. It is questionable whether GMR would have undertaken all these developments as well.

While these developments might have been costly, the positive results of the investments have already started showing, with annual net profits of MACL growing to $71.3 million in 2024, up from $14.9 million in 2008 and $16.6 million in 2009. Given the relatively low profits that MACL was making at the time, the then government might have seen GMR’s offer very attractive, getting to develop the airport for “free” while still earning some concession fees. However, subsequent governments have been able to 4x the profits on our own within just 5 years of ousting GMR.

So did we really win?
From the data that I was able to see, I think financially it was a narrow win over the long term. More data and expert analysis is needed to give a more definitive answer.

But perhaps the bigger lesson here is not about whether GMR stayed or left—but about how we manage national assets, contracts, and long-term strategy in a way that avoids unnecessary conflict and maximizes public benefit. We need leaders with vision who prioritizes national interest and long term strategy over making quick bucks. If we had never signed the agreement in the first place, we’d be in a much better position today.

Found this analysis useful? Think I got something wrong? Feel free to share, critique, or improve it. Let’s keep the conversation going—with facts.

It’s the end of another year and time to reflect back. Before I started writing this article I’ve finally updated the hosting server for this blog after several years. Anyway, without further ado, let’s dive into my 2024. This year had been the year of AI for us, and fittingly I had become lazy and asked Claude to write most of the rest of what you are about to read.

Driving

My car being lifted off the delivery boat

After our move to Hulhumale’ last year, my Dad decided we needed a family car to make travel between Male’ and Hulhumale’ easier. In January, after browsing various options on iBay and Facebook Marketplace, Dad purchased a 2022 Toyota Aqua from a seller in Addu. Even though the car would be registered in my name, Dad took care of the entire purchase.

The car’s journey to us was an adventure in itself – shipped on a supply dhoni from Addu, arriving at Hulhumale’ harbour within days. Watching our new family car being lifted off the boat at the harbour was a nerve-wracking experience. Despite having a driving license, my years without practice left me rusty enough to need assistance from my uncle and father-in-law just to drive the car from the harbour to our place.

The registration process turned out to be quite an ordeal, highlighting the unique challenges of car ownership in Male’. Since none of us own land in the Male’ area, registering a car in the Male’ zone proved complicated – you need proof of having a garage, something few vehicles (even government ones) actually have. Most people resort to paying landowners for letters claiming garage space. While our original seller offered to help with registration, their proposed solution involved temporarily registering the car in Addu zone with a fake Male’ zone board – a risky proposition we weren’t comfortable with. Instead, through one of Dad’s friends, we found another registration agent who, despite warning about delays due to stricter regulations, helped us get the car properly registered in my name after about 3-4 weeks of waiting.

Alhamdhlillaahi, once registered, I gradually regained my confidence behind the wheel. My uncle chaperoned my first drive, but after a few trips between Male’ and Hulhumale’, my nervousness faded. Hulhumale’s wider, less congested roads made driving and parking relatively easy, though Male’s narrow inner roads and scarce parking remain challenging. Since I was the most available family member to drive, I became our family’s designated driver, regularly taking everyone for shopping trips and driving my sister to work.

Javaabu

2024 was a year of mixed fortunes for Javaabu. This year we faced a lot of cashflow challenges because of huge delays in the government paying us for their projects resulting from the Maldivian economic crisis. Despite this, me and Jailam managed to pay all the team’s salaries and bills on time, keeping the business afloat.

This year we successfully delivered numerous significant projects. These included the Muiz and Co website, Environment Ministry website upgrade, JobPair.ca, DMADD website, LGA website, and Agriculture Ministry website. We also completed major systems like the Maritime Licensing System for the Transport Ministry and the Waste Management System and mobile app for the Environment Ministry. Throughout the year, we continued to upgrade existing platforms including eTukuri, MEES portal, Maldive Gas app, and the Maldives Protected Areas Website.

A significant technical challenge we faced was our aging codebase. Our Laravel starter template was stuck in version 9, while Laravel 11 was on the horizon. The monolithic nature of our template made upgrades particularly challenging. To address this, Athfan and I undertook a major initiative to modularize our code into open source packages. This led to the establishment of docs.javaabu.com, providing proper documentation for our systems for the first time. We published numerous packages on github.com/Javaabu, Packagist, and NPM with valuable contributions from Afeef and other team members.

While this modernization effort consumed much of the first quarter, it resulted in more maintainable and testable codebases. We implemented CI workflows for automated testing on GitHub and reinvigorated our commitment to unit testing for improved code quality. The year ended with some team changes as two members departed – one for studies abroad and another to explore new opportunities – but we successfully hired two new members to maintain our momentum.

DhivehiGPT and AI

2024 marked our decisive pivot toward AI technologies. Recognizing that we couldn’t solely rely on government projects, Jailam and I agreed to increase our focus on AI development. Our initial attempt to hire a ML Research Engineer faced some challenges, with the first hire not working out. However, we eventually found success with Yameen, whose enthusiasm for the field, despite lacking formal training, led to the establishment of Training Thursdays – a weekly knowledge-sharing session where he and other team members present on various ML topics and ongoing work.

A major technical achievement came with Yameen’s development of a highly optimized Dhivehi TTS model capable of real-time operation on mobile phones, with a remarkably small 10MB model file size. This TTS app was specifically designed to assist blind and visually impaired users with mobile screen reading.

Me and Yameen presenting about DhivehiGPT at IGF 2024

June brought a significant milestone with Jailam’s major update to DhivehiGPT, leveraging the native Dhivehi language support in Claude 3.5 Sonnet. The impact was immediate and dramatic – our user base exploded from 4,000 to over 40,000 users by the end of the year. Alhamdhlillaahi, with this increased popularity, DhivehiGPT had become profitable. The proliferation of DhivehiGPT had increased the awareness of  AI among the Maldivian population, leading to increased demand for AI-related lectures and training sessions from various organizations. While Jailam handled most of these events, I also contributed by speaking at Maldives IGF 2024, Maldives AI Forum 2024 and the Al-Asr youth event.

Our success drew significant media attention, with multiple appearances on national TV, radio, and online news outlets. This visibility also attracted new competitors to the market, pushing us to innovate further. In November, I implemented a major overhaul of the DhivehiGPT site, introducing team plans and a credit-based subscription system that enabled us to easily roll out new features like Speech to Text and Text to Speech. Our participation in the CyberExpo organized by Maldives Police helped us to reach out to the public more and provided valuable insights into similar technologies being developed by other market players. In Sha Allah, we have even more exciting developments planned for DhivehiGPT in the coming year.

Gym

One of the major changes in my life this year was starting my fitness journey after Ramadan. The last time I had gone to gym was all the way back in 2021. I had promised my wife I’d resume gym after we marry, but had never gotten around to it. Since I was now living in Hulhumale’, I wanted to find a good personal trainer in Hulhumale’. This turned out to be a little bit of a challenge, but eventually, one of my friend’s previous trainer recommended one of his mentees to me at a new gym opening in Hulhumale’ Phase 1. My trainer turned out to be pretty good and helped guide me through proper workout routines. The gym sessions not only improved my fitness but also helped establish a better daily routine by getting me to wake up early. While I didn’t see dramatic changes on the scale, I definitely became noticeably fitter and stronger. A memorable highlight was being featured on my PT’s Instagram – a small moment of fame in my fitness journey!

Travel

2024 was filled with diverse travel experiences, starting with a peaceful family getaway to Makunudu resort in January. Despite being a tiny resort with limited facilities, it offered a beautiful glimpse of Maldivian natural beauty with its pristine beaches, crystal-clear waters, and diverse sea birds.

February took me to Bangladesh to visit my wife in Chittagong. My friend Ratul joined us for 2 days, and we made the most of it by visiting the local zoo where we saw magnificent Bengal tigers. What started as a week-long trip extended to two weeks, giving us more precious time together.

For Alhaa Eid, we enjoyed a family trip to Thulusdhoo, where we had the unique experience of touring the Coca Cola factory. Our stay at the Season Paradise guest house was highlighted by their exceptional food service, making the two-day trip even more memorable.

However, the most dramatic travel experience of the year came during my July visit to Bangladesh. The trip, initially planned for earlier in the month, had to be delayed by a week due to student-led quota protests and internet blackouts that made it difficult to contact my wife. When things seemed to calm down, I made the journey to Chittagong for what was planned as a two-week stay at a hotel. But the situation took an unexpected turn as protests intensified and the internet was cut off again. As one of the few remaining guests in the hotel, we watched as people gathered around Chittagong and the political situation reached its climax with the fall of Hasina’s government.

The hotel we had stayed in, damaged by protesters

The night the government fell became particularly tense when the hotel staff informed us that our safety might be compromised since the hotel belonged to a ruling party MP and protesters were targeting ruling party-related businesses. In the middle of the night, we were evacuated to the Radisson Hotel, which was run by the Bangladesh Army. The hotel staff showed remarkable dedication to our safety during this tumultuous time. After returning to Maldives, we learned that our original hotel had indeed been attacked with rocks, damaging its glass facade.

September brought a delightful day trip to K. Huraa, where I was able to capture some stunning drone shots of the mangrove. In November, we celebrated my wife’s return to Maldives after completing her internship, and shortly after, we embarked on a two-week Malaysian adventure.

Our Malaysian journey began with over a week in KL before heading to Langkawi, where we experienced many firsts together. The trip was packed with exciting activities: riding the Skycab cable car, braving the glass-bottom Eagle’s Nest Skywalk platform (where a kind elderly gentleman taught us to look up while walking to overcome our fear), exploring the 3D art museum, and going island hopping. We kayaked in the Lake of the Pregnant Maiden, watched a mesmerizing fire show at Cenang Beach, and pushed our comfort zones with parasailing – which was terrifying but offered breathtaking views. I discovered a natural talent for jet skiing, according to my wife, and we ventured on an ATV ride among rice paddies and hills, which we later realized was actually more dangerous than the parasailing! Our stay at the Aloft hotel concluded perfectly with their weekly BBQ buffet on the final night, where we indulged in an impressive spread of meats including smoked brisket, chicken, sausage, and lamb.

Beautiful Innafinolhu

The year’s travels concluded with an impromptu but meaningful weekend trip to my island in December. While the rest of my family had planned to go, we initially hadn’t intended to join them. However, knowing that my father had spent the past year renovating our house there, and me having bought furniture for our room, I decided it would be special to show my wife my island home for the first time. It was also my first visit since before leaving for the UK in 2022.

The two days were packed with activities: kayaking, enjoying evening tea on the beach, and exploring the many new developments on the island. We went island hopping to Hathifushi – a fascinating ghost town abandoned after the 2004 Tsunami and now reclaimed by nature – and Innafinolhu, a beautiful uninhabited island that had been split by a storm. The crystal-clear waters and pristine beaches were even more spectacular than what we’d seen in Langkawi, helping me understand why the Maldives holds such appeal for visitors worldwide. It was particularly rewarding to see how much my wife enjoyed the experience.

New Year’s Photo

Us trying to write 2025 with light with fireworks in the background

This year’s New Year’s photo came with its own unique story. The evening began with my wife wanting to cook me a special meal – delicious burgers that left her quite tired from battling with a messy frying pan. Our photo plans had to work around dropping my sister off at work in Male’, so we packed the camera equipment in the car. By the time we returned to Hulhumale’, it was already past 11:30 PM and pouring rain. Working quickly, we improvised a roadside photo shoot, setting up the tripod just in time for midnight. My wife took charge of the camera while I painted the numbers, with spontaneous fireworks creating a spectacular backdrop. While perhaps not the perfect shot we’d planned, it was definitely cool and incredibly memorable. We concluded our New Year’s celebration with a fitting late-night chai at Marry Brown. You can download the full resolution image from my Flickr.

Hope you like my photo, and wish your 2025 would bring you many blessings and happiness! Cheers.

2023 had been a year of change for me and for the Maldives as well. After 5 years, we finally elected a new president in Dr. Muiz, which was an unexpected (yet totally expected) outcome. In 2023, the world had dropped into yet more chaos, especially, with the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine. Anyway, you can read more about those events elsewhere on the internet. Here let’s recap how my 2023 had been.

Ramadan

Where we had our Eid prayers after Ramadan

The year had started with the start of the 2nd semester of my Masters degree at University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Early in the year, the days were still short with some of my evening classes happening after sundown. But soon as spring and summer rolled around, the days started getting longer, with the sun setting as late as 10:30PM in the middle of summer! In March and April, I experienced my first Ramadan away from family. Despite missing the food from home, it was a much better experience than I expected, with St. Andrews Muslim Students’ Association (StAMSA) organizing free iftars 3 days a week. I also got invited to iftar by a few friends a couple of times as well, which was a lovely departure from eating alone in my flat. During these iftars, I met several interesting people from around the world who were fellow students, staff or residents of St. Andrews. I also brought along some of my Muslim and non-Muslim friends to the iftars which they seemed to enjoy quite a bit. For suhoor and on the days that I couldn’t land a free iftar, I resorted to ordering from Deliveroo, which was an expensive endeavor but definitely better than the frozen meals I was eating prior to that. I think the hardest part of Ramadan was the long daylight hours, with the sun setting as late as 8:30 PM by end of the month. It was definitely a different experience to fast in a non-Muslim country where everyone else is merrily eating around you. But I felt like they had a certain level of respect for people who are fasting. Case in point, one of my most memorable moments from Ramadan was when I went to Glasgow for a reception for scholars in Scotland. The university had arranged a taxi for us and a lovely lady from the international student recruitment office were in charge of us as the university representative. Scotland was playing in the UEFA qualifiers at Glasgow on the same day, so the roads to Glasgow were packed, making us arrive at the reception just when it was ending. When the lady from the university found out I was fasting and since there was no real food at the reception, she arranged with the university to buy me and the rest of the students on the trip food from a halal takeout place in Glasgow on our way back to St. Andrews.

Cooking

Some of my culinary creations

After 7 years of studying, Alhamdhlillaahi, my wife finally graduated with her MBBS degree in 2023. She had finished her final exams in April and came over to Scotland to visit me for 3 weeks in May after my 2nd semester ended. During her visit, we were staying in Dundee at an apartment I had booked. Since the apartment had a fully equipped kitchen, we decided to try our hands at cooking. Initially my wife was annoyed at me trying to help her in the kitchen, but then I wanted to show her I could also cook (despite never really cooking in my life before). So I watched the steps she was doing and figured out how to cook a cheese omelette on my own. After that I cooked fried rice for her. What I learned was cooking any dish essentially just involved cutting some onions, sautéing them and mixing in some meat and sauces. So, after my wife left, with my new found cooking skills, I ended up cooking several dishes on my own in my flat with halal meat delivered online. Some of the dishes I cooked were; chicken spaghetti, beef lasagna, tuna macaroni, stir fried beef, peri peri roast chicken, chicken fried rice, chilli sausage, wagyu beef burgers, turkey bacon spaghetti. With this new cooking habit, I ended up gaining back around 5 kilos I had initially lost when I first went to UK! After I came back to Maldives, I found out we didn’t have all the convenient cooking equipment and ingredients here as compared to UK. For example, in Scotland I used to cook with white onions, baking potatos and different spices like oregano, cajun and paprika. As for equipment, in my home in Maldives I found out we didn’t have oven mitts, chef knife or a good cutting board. So, in Maldives I haven’t been cooking much.

Academics

Me at my graduation

2023 was a big year in my academic journey. I decided to do my Masters dissertation on Dhivehi Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). The project turned out to be quite successful, and I was even able to write my very first academic paper on the subject, presenting my findings at the International Conference on Natural Language and Speech Processing (ICNLSP) 2023. I’m currently waiting for my paper to be published in ACL Anthology. After finishing my course in August and getting my results in September, Alhamdhlillaahi, I was delighted to find out that I had scored the highest from my course and I would be receiving the School of Computer Science medal for MSc in Artificial Intelligence! When I finally graduated in November, it was nice to catch up with my friends back in Scotland.

Moving

One of the biggest changes in 2023 for me was moving to Hulhumale’ from Male’. After spending 1 year in Scotland, I came back to Maldives in August. Initially I was staying in the same apartment in Male’ I was staying before I left for UK. Since at the time my wife was working at Hulhumale’, everyday I had to make long trips back and forth between Male’ and Hulhumale’ to drop her off and pick her up from her duty. After 1 month of this, my family finally got handover of an apartment from Hulhumale’ Phase 2 that we had applied for over a year ago. We had to spend another month on finishing works for the apartment and finally in September we moved there with the works partially completed. This was a huge change for me as now I had to do a 20 minute commute to work everyday instead of the short 5 minute ride I had in Male’. Despite the long driving distance, I found Hulhumale’ to be much more pleasant, without the heavy traffic and congestion in Male’.

Javaabu

The team gave me a surprise when I returned to work after 1 year in Scotland

For a huge part of 2023, I was away from Maldives and my office, with the first half of the year with me being in Scotland, and even after I came back, with me being busy with moving to our new apartment and having to do a lot of travelling. Alhamdhlillaahi, despite me being away, Javaabu’s team had matured a lot and had become much more independent than before, with some projects being delivered without any involvement from me at all. However, I was still very much involved in overseeing larger projects. As the CTO, I had been delegating as much tasks as possible to the development team, with me mainly guiding the system architectures and UI/UX designs for these projects. Most of our major projects are now handled by small internal teams, with a senior developer as the lead as opposed to a single developer handling the whole project. I think this arrangement has contributed to the growth of the team’s skill and team cohesion.

One of the biggest changes in 2023 at Javaabu was the restructuring of our developers’ salaries. This was driven partially by the results of a survey I had conducted on Software Engineers’ salaries in Maldives and also mainly by the departure of one of our developers for a government job that offered a higher salaries. We increased our senior developers’ salaries substantially in July and I am proud to say that now they earn in the top 25% of developer salaries in Maldives. With this change, our salaries have become competitive with the government and state owned companies.

Some of the projects we delivered in 2023 include, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) website, Maldives Qualification Authority (MQA) website, Maldives Marine Protected Areas Portal, Maldives Budget Website and Data Portal, MV Laws website and Mobile App, and Maldives Criminal Justice System Database. One of our notable CSR projects during the year was the launching of Edhiha Portal which is a crowd funding platform we developed for a local NGO. In 2023 we also partnered with Mihaaru News to integrate our Dhivehi Text-to-Speech (TTS) system into their website to automatically narrate their articles. One of my weekend projects, DhivehiGPT, which is a Dhivehi version of ChatGPT, also turned into a huge success with a dedicated user base regularly using the website. Initially we launched the website completely free, but eventually as our OpenAI bills started racking up, by the end of the year, we had to implement a payment system for users who wanted unlimited usage. To our surprise, a lot of people actually ended up paying for the service.

My current focus at Javaabu is to pivot more towards AI and Machine Learning technologies, and release our own AI products. Currently I am trying to establish a commercial AI lab at Javaabu, where we hope to publish and commercialize our own AI research works. In Sha Allah, we’ll be making our first ML Engineer hire early in 2024 and moving on from there. I am also putting an effort towards streamlining our development workflow by modularizing our code bases and writing documentation.

Travel

Some of the beautiful places I visited in 2023

2023 had been a busy year of travel for me. I started the year in January with the longest journey of my life so far with me visiting my wife in Kluang, Malaysia, all the way from Scotland. I ended up doing almost 27 hours of travel each way, having to take 2 taxi rides, 2 flights (3 flights when I came back) and a bus ride. It was nice finally seeing my wife after several months away from her. However, for half of the trip I was quite jet-lagged, with me not being able to sleep at night due to the huge time difference between Scotland and Malaysia. Nevertheless it was still worth it to visit my wife.

After Malaysia, in February I visited London for 2 days to attend the Commonwealth Scholars welcome event. It was a grueling 10 hour bus ride to London. In this trip I saw the Big Ben (the Elizabeth Tower more accurately) and the Buckingham Palace for the first time. Me and one of my friends also took a tour of Stafford Bridge, which is the home of Chelsea FC. After this trip, during my 2nd semester’s mid-semester break week, I visited the Scottish Deer Center in Cupar where I fed deer and saw different animals native to Scotland.

I did more travelling in the summer when my wife was visiting me. We went to London for 2 days, this time by flight. We took a cruise on the River Thames, rode the London Eye and visited the National History Museum and the V&A Museum. After London, we went on a day trip to Aberdeen to visit my wife’s friends studying there. We also went on day trip to St. Andrews where we had afternoon high tea and I showed my wife around the town. After my wife left, I went back to London for another 2 day trip, this time by train, to attend the UK Scholars’ farewell event. On this trip I met with other Maldivian scholars studying in the UK for the first time.

After I came back to Maldives, in October, my wife had to leave for her internship in Bangladesh. I accompanied her on this trip, first going to Dhaka for a week and then staying in Chittagong for 2 weeks. Bangladesh is much less developed than Maldives and it was hard for us to get used to the new environment. I was glad that I had friends in Bangladesh who helped us out a lot with my wife settling into the place she was staying at. One of my close friends there took us on a tour near his home town, which was a beautiful experience where we saw some lovely scenes of the Bangladeshi country side.

After Bangladesh, in November, I travelled back to Scotland via London for my graduation. My younger sister and my parents accompanied me on this trip. During this trip we went on day trips to St. Andrews and Edinburgh. My sister wanted to see snow, so I had arranged a day trip to the Highlands as well hoping we would be able to catch some snow there. On the Highland tour, we drove around 4 hours all the way from Dundee to Loch Ness. On this trip I saw some of the most beautiful sceneries I had seen in Scotland so far, with lightly snow capped mountains, Ben Nevis, and large lakes (or lochs in Scottish lingo) . It wasn’t really snowing since it was still the very start of winter, however to my sister’s delight, we encountered snow on our way back. After my graduation event in St. Andrews, we flew back to London and stayed for a day there where we visited the typical London attractions.

All in all, 2023 was a good year in travel for me, with me visiting lots of different new places.

New Years’ Photo

My nephew trying to write 2024 with light

Enough of 2023, let’s talk about 2024 and take a moment to enjoy my New Year’s Eve tradition of light painting. This year due to the historically heavy rain on New Year’s eve, I couldn’t go out to take the annual photo. So I ended up taking the photo in our apartment in Hulhumale’ with my 7 year old nephew helping me out. You can download the full resolution image from my Flickr.

Hope you like my photo, and wish your 2024 would bring you many blessings and happiness! Cheers.

Without reading any further, if you just want a single number, according to my survey, the average monthly developer salary in Maldives is MVR 24,734.70 (USD 1,604.07). The median monthly salary is MVR 20,000.00 (USD 1,297.01). These numbers have a margin of error of roughly 8%, meaning the actual average salary is between MVR 22,755.92 and MVR 26,713.48. If you want a more fine grained average based on your education and experience level, then take a look at the table at the bottom of this article. Keep reading the rest of the article to see how I arrived at these numbers.

Survey Methodology

The survey was conducted online through a Google Form between 31st January 2023 and 9th February 2023. Respondents were asked 4 questions:

1. How much is your (monthly) salary in MVR?
2. Which sector do you work in? (With 3 options; Private, Government and State Owned Enterprise (SOE))
3. How many years of experience do you have? (With 12 options; ranging from Less than 1 year to 10+ years)
4. What’s your education level? (With 8 options; No formal education, O’level, A’level, Certificate Level, Diploma Level, Degree Level, Masters and PhD)

The survey link was shared publicly on Twitter and on the Telegram MV Developers group. I had also personally shared the link with several developer friends from Maldives I knew and had asked them to share the survey with the rest of their work colleagues. Potential respondents were instructed that this survey was only for Software Developers working in the Maldives at local positions. One frequent question that arose was how do I define a Software Developer, since a lot of people tend to write code at their jobs for various tasks, but not necessarily as their primary work. So, for the purposes of this survey, a Software Developer was defined as someone who writes and/or maintains code as their primary job. Under this definition, based on different estimates from the community, there are estimated to be around 970 Software Developers in the Maldives.

The Results

With great support from the community, I had received a total of 125 responses for my survey. This is roughly 12.9% of the estimated target population, and enough data to draw some statistically significant conclusions.

First lets look at the overall distribution of the monthly salaries. The minimum salary recorded was MVR 4,000 and the highest salary recorded was a staggering MVR 140,000!. As can be seen from the graph below, the most common salary was MVR 20,000. The 75th percentile salary was MVR 30,000, meaning 25% of developers earn MVR 30K or more every month. To be among the top 10% of earners, you need to earn MVR 43,241.40 or more per month. And if you want to join the coveted top 1%, you need to earn at least MVR 128,560.00 per month (USD 100K per year) (This is close to the average Software Developer salary in the U.S)!

Salary by Sector

According to the survey results, the majority of Maldivian developers work in the public sector, with 55.2% of developers working in either Government or SOE jobs. Private sector employees make up only 44.8% of the respondents.

The results show that there is significant difference between Developer salaries across the 3 sectors surveyed. As expected, Government jobs have the lowest average salary at MVR 19,854.98. Surprisingly, Private jobs pay the best, with average salaries at MVR 28,528.73.

Salary by Years of Experience

Majority of the respondents (20.8%) to the survey were seasoned developers with 10+ years of experience. This may have skewed the overall average salary towards the higher end of the spectrum as the data shows that those with more experience tends to get higher salaries across all sectors.

One interesting observation here is that, even though the Private sector had the highest average salary, the Private sector seems to pay less for less experienced developers than the other 2 sectors. This could be because, the Private sector is more meritocratic through market forces.

Salary by Education Level

According to the survey, most (49.6%) professional Software Developers in the Maldives have at least a Degree Level certificate. 14.4% have Masters Level qualifications and none of the respondents had a PhD.

Interestingly, unlike years of experience, education level does not seem to directly correlate to salary amount. Rather, it seems to be more of a convex relation, with those with little to no education, and those with degree level or higher education earning the highest. The lowest earners are those with either a Certificate or Diploma Level qualification. This suggests that you need either mad-skills or a quality education to earn well in the Maldivian software industry.

Summary

The below table summarizes the average salaries in relation to both education level and the years of experience you have. If you are just entering the Maldivian software industry and have no idea how much you should be paid, you can use the below table and look up an average monthly salary based on how much coding experience and qualification you have. Note that the averages for some combinations of education and experience are significantly deviated from the overall average due to a lack of samples. Use those averages with a degree of caution.

Conclusion

I am really thankful to everyone who contributed to this survey, and I hope that my findings will be beneficial for everyone in the community. This data could be useful for employers to set realistic pay scales and for job seekers to demand a fair salary. We at Javaabu would definitely be considering these findings next time we revise our staff salaries.

Future research into this area could look deeper into salary discrepancies by gender, geographical location, developer specialty (Frontend, Mobile, Fullstack, etc.). It could also be expanded to include Maldivians working for foreign companies, look into remote vs on-location jobs and possibly include jobs from the rest of the IT industry as well.

Anyway, that’s it for now.

After months of planning and jumping over several hurdles thrown by Covid, I finally got married to the love of my life in early March. We had a lovely ceremony in Male’ with many of our friends and family attending. The wedding planning turned out to be a constrained satisfaction problem, having to balance the budget with all the costs of decorations, catering, venue, etc. While me and my wife had made most of the arrangements by ourselves, both of our families also contributed in their own ways. I am really happy with the end result, and I would forever remember the beautiful ceremony and am really grateful to everyone who helped out.

The beautiful dessert table that my family made for our wedding

After the wedding, we jetted off to Turkey for our honeymoon, where I was able to experience snow for the first time in my life. We stayed in Istanbul at the lovely Meg Hotel for 5 days, visiting the beautiful Ottoman sites and enjoying the tasty Turkish food. After Istanbul, we flew to Cappadocia to ride the famous hot air balloons. Unfortunately, our balloon flight got cancelled because of the wind conditions. Even though Cappadocia was really beautiful, it was bitterly cold while we there with temperatures dropping to -11 °C and the cave hotel we were staying at wasn’t really our cup of tea. However, it was still an unforgettable experience and I hope to return some day to ride the hot air balloons when the weather is a bit warmer.

Istanbul covered in snow, captured from the Galata Tower

Apart from getting married, the next biggest event in my life in 2022 had been being awarded the Commonwealth Masters Scholarship to study Masters in the UK! That’s right, I am currently a student at the University of St. Andrews, the oldest university in Scotland, studying MSc Artificial Intelligence. After completing all the application and visa processes, I moved to Scotland in September. This had been my very first time in Europe (if you don’t count Turkey) and everything had been a real culture shock. The weather is so cold here that unlike Maldives, buildings here usually don’t have any fans or air conditioning and you literally just open your windows to cool your room using the natural cold air. The day-night cycle is also like a rollercoaster; when I first arrived here the sun rose around 6:20 AM and set around almost 8:00 PM, however now the sun rises around 8:45 AM and sets by 3:40 PM!. The bathrooms don’t have any bidets, and you’ve to get really creative to properly clean your bum. On weekdays I have to walk 20 minutes each way to reach my classes. With all the walking around and the lack of availability of cheap halal food (and me being too lazy to learn to cook) since I came here I have managed to lose over 7 kgs!

My very first glimpse of the UK

It had been a real change of pace to get back to academics after working at Javaabu for 6 years. And Alhamdhlillaahi, it seems I still have the touch to study. Most of the modules had been really interesting and I enjoyed getting my hands dirty with solving the problems in some of the assignments. It had also been nice to meet new people from the field. Surprisingly, the student body at St. Andrews doesn’t seem as internationally diverse as my previous university, with majority of international students coming from either India or China. This could be specific to the School of Computer Science or maybe I have not interacted with enough people (or statistically you are more likely to meet people from those 2 countries as they’ve the highest populations in the world).

Beautiful St. Andrews

It wouldn’t really have been possible to move away from work if it wasn’t for my great team at Javaabu and my business partner Jailam holding down the fort at home. Even though I am away studying, I have been remotely overseeing my team’s work. Sometimes it gets difficult with the time difference, with me having to attend meetings at even 5 AM somedays. However, work has enabled me to be less homesick and it had helped me be more productive.

Yet more snow in St. Andrews as well

Talking about Javaabu, Alhamdhlillaahi, 2022 was a very productive year for us. One of the major projects of the year was further development of Kiyeveni.mv and producing 9 more courses for the platform. Later in the year, Shaamilu Adu, a Dhivehi Text-to-Speech system we developed for Department of Inclusive Education (IED) to help blind and visually impaired students was officially launched as well. Some of the government websites we delivered this year include health.gov.mv, youth.gov.mv, cmda.gov.mv and fpa.gov.mv. We had delivered some other major internal systems as well and some public systems that are yet to be released. This year we made 2 new hires and towards the end of the year, we finally launched a new version of our Javaabu Academy website.

Apart from me, Alhamdhlillaahi 2022 had been a good year for my friends and family as well. In November, my younger sister finally graduated from her MBBS degree. My wife had also passed the first half of her MBBS final exam this year. And in October, my business partner Jailam, was awarded the National Youth Award in the area of Economy and Entrepreneurship for the work he had done at Javaabu. He and 2 other friends of mine were also blessed with new babies as well.

Merdeka 118, the 2nd tallest building in the world, located in KL, Malaysia. Captured from KL Tower

In terms of travel, after 2 years of the pandemic, finally in 2022 things generally calmed down in most countries. However, with the last wave of Covid-19 in Maldives, I finally caught the disease in February, right after I had received my booster dose. For the first 2 days I had high fever, but Alhamdhlillaahi, I fully recovered within 7 days without any complications or perceived long term effects. After the bout with Covid, I was generally free to travel after countries started to open their borders. I made 2 trips to Malaysia in 2022, first in late April, then in early July, both times during the Eid holidays to visit wife who’s studying there. The first time I stayed in KL, and the 2nd time I stayed in Seremban which was a new experience for me. Right before I came to the UK, I also made a short 4 day trip to my island in August to visit my family before I left the country.

Politically, 2022 had been another hectic year for Maldives. Most notable had been the falling out between the Former President Mohamed Nasheed and the current President Ibramih Mohamed Solih as Nasheed had wanted to change the Maldivian governing system to a Parliamentary system and assume the role of Prime Minister. This has essentially split the ruling MDP into 2 factions of pro-Nasheed and pro-Solih camps, with the pro-Solih camp seemingly having the upper hand. Towards the end of the year, the 2nd biggest upset in Maldivian politics had been the re-jailing of Former President Abdulla Yameen on bribery and money laundering charges. With these developments, it’s anybody’s guess how the 2023 Maldives Presidential Elections are going to turn out. It’s definitely going to be an interesting year indeed.

Enough of 2022, let’s talk about 2023 and take a moment to enjoy my New Year’s Eve tradition of light painting. This year I was by myself to take my annual photo. This was by far the coldest New Year’s Eve of my life with the temperature around 3 °C and my hands close to freezing while operating the camera. This time around, the back drop of the photo is the historic Quad at the University of St. Andrews. Originally built in the 1400s, the current buildings you see were redeveloped in the 1800s and the early 1900s. The Quad has many stories and traditions behind its buildings, and it’s a must visit spot if you ever drop by St. Andrews. You can download the full resolution image from my Flickr.

Hope you like my photo, and wish your 2023 would bring you many blessings and happiness! Cheers.

With the release of the vaccines, most of us, including me, thought that Covid-19 would be a thing of the past by the end of the year. In fact, I got my 2 doses of the Covishield vaccine early in the year in February and April before the Maldives ran out of vaccines after India put restrictions on vaccine exports in response to their unprecedented 2nd wave of Covid-19. Maldives too went into a 2nd lockdown at the end of Ramadan, having to celebrate another Eid stuck at home. During the surge, Maldives at one point had the highest number of daily Covid-19 cases per capita across the whole world!

With the 2nd lockdown, at Javaabu we also once again had to switch to working from home. This time around I was fortunate enough to have a good work from home setup set up in my bedroom before the lockdown started. The lockdown period was a stressful time for us due to our odd working hours at home. This time around too, during the worst of the surge, we were able to assist the government by building a Medical Oxygen Supply tracking software for the government’s primary gas supplier to better manage the country’s oxygen supply as the demand for oxygen was going through the roof at the Covid facilities. We called this project “Operation Neyvaa” and had it delivered in just a few days. I would like to think that Javaabu had a role in literally keeping the country breathing this year, hehe.

Talking of exciting projects by Javaabu, Alhamdhlillaahi, 2021 was a very productive year for us. Early in the year, the online course platform we developed for LGA, Kiyeveni.mv was officially launched. Around the same time, the upgraded government job portal, JobCenter.mv was launched as well. Some of the government websites we delivered this year include planning.gov.mv and hrcm.org.mv. We had delivered some other major systems as well that are yet to be released.

After the lockdown ended, we returned to working from office on July 1st to a brand new and a much bigger officer. We also had 4 new members joining our team as well this year. Overall, Javaabu had grown exponentially in 2021 and our workflow had become much more streamlined and efficient. The rest of the team had become much more independent and productive, with even some sub teams being formed for some projects.

Politically, 2021 had been a whirlwind year for Maldives. In May, there was a bomb attack against the former President and Speaker of the Majlis, Mohamed Nasheed which caused him severe injuries and had him flying to Germany and the U.K for extended medical treatment. Right before that, the ruling party, MDP was defeated in major constituencies by the opposition PPM during the 2021 Maldives Local Council Elections. The opposition was handed another victory later in the year as well, with the overturning of their leader, former President Yameen‘s, 5 year money laundering sentence by the Supreme Court of the Maldives. With his release, the opposition’s “India Out” campaign, which is calling for the removal of Indian military presence from Maldives, had also intensified. With a much more active opposition, it looks like the next year is going to be politically much more tougher for the current government.

While 2021 might not have been so good for the current government, Alhamdhlillaahi, personally for me and my family it had been a really successful year. Both my mom and dad, as well as my uncle and grandfather were awarded the National Award for Public Service for their long term service to the nation. And for me, in October I was awarded the National Youth Award in the area of Economy and Entrepreneurship for the work I had done at Javaabu. I was profiled in one of the local online news sites as well as by my alma mater, University of Nottingham. I also had the opportunity to give a talk to a group of youth at a workshop organized by the Ministry of Youth as well as being a panelist at an online masterclass conducted by Asian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA). Moreover, I got the chance to do several TV appearances on some local TV channels regarding some of the work conducted by Javaabu and Javaabu Academy. Talking of Javaabu Academy, in 2021, I finally started conducting some courses myself, namely a course on CorelDRAW and another one on WordPress. This was a really rewarding experience, as I was able to connect with students from all over the Maldives. who were keen to learn what I had to teach.

In terms of travel, since the pandemic started, I was finally able to fly back to my island for Al’haa Eid after the government eased travel restrictions. Since a new airport had opened just 15-20 minutes away from our island, this time around, the journey was really comfortable compared to years prior. I was able to spend 3 weeks in my island and flew my Mavic 2 extensively through out my stay. Most interesting event during my trip was that a 100 year old shipwreck at one of the nearby uninhabited islands had mysteriously disappeared after a recent storm. I took two trips to the island to scout the area using my drone to look for the missing shipwreck. My first attempt turned out unsuccessful without any definitive sightings. However, I was able to find it on the 2nd trip, and turns out the whole structure had toppled over into the sea.

In October, I took a 3 day trip to Sri Lanka accompanying my Mum on her trip to stay with my sister during her college final exams. This was my first international trip since 2019 and travel had changed a lot since then. For this trip I had to take 3 Covid-19 PCR tests within just 1 week. Right after my Lanka trip, I flew to Kulhudhuhfushi City on the following day to attend the Youth Day events where I received the aforementioned National Youth Award. I wasn’t lucky enough to see any flamingos at the local mangrove who had been flocking there just a few days before my trip.

Enough of 2021, let’s talk about 2022 and take a moment to enjoy my New Year’s Eve tradition of light painting. This year I was lucky enough to have my friends around to help me out and we took a ride down to the tourist island in Hulhumale’ Phase 2 for my annual photo. This time around, the back drop of the photo is the newly inhabited Hiyaa Flats, which seems appropriate for an occasion commemorating new beginnings. A special thanks goes out to my friends Shamin, Urey, Rishwan, Afrah, Hamko, Muaviyath and Saleena for helping me out with taking the photo. You can download the full resolution image from my Flickr.

Last year I made a resolution to publish at least 1 blog post each month and 1 photo each week. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to hold onto this goal as I was able to post just a handful of photos the whole year, and wasn’t able to publish any blog posts. I want to attempt this challenge again this year. Let’s see if I can hold myself to this goal in 2022. Anyway, hope you like my photo, and wish your 2022 would be much better than your 2021! I leave you with a group photo of all my friends who helped me take this year’s annual photo. Cheers.

The world just couldn’t catch a break this past year. We started off the year with the death of Kobe Bryant in January followed by intense bushfires in Australia. The U.S was in turmoil for the better part of the whole year after the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests that followed. In August, the world was literally rocked by the insane explosion in Beirut. The year ended with the death of the Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona in November. These are just a few of the horrible things that happened in 2020. If you are feeling a bit masochistic and want to relive the whole year, here is a more comprehensive list of bad things that happened in 2020.

Personally for me, I had a solid start to 2020 and it was downhill from there. After returning from vacation in December 2019, in January, we moved to a new house. Alhamdhlillaahi, after 20 years of living in Male’, finally I had a whole room all to myself. However, this meant now I had to spend much more on rent. I guess you can’t have the cake and eat it too. Early in the year, my company Javaabu was also doing really well. We had just delivered the new website for Visit Maldives, the official travel destination of Maldives, and we had a good runway to sustain us for the next couple of months.

The first sign of Covid-19 troubles in Maldives started in January itself, with the discovery of a suspected case at the end of the month. However this turned out to be a fluke. The first actual confirmed case of Covid-19 in Maldives was found in Kuredu Island Resort on 7th March. From then on, there was a slow but steady pace of imported Covid cases in Maldives. So, from March 19th onwards, the government decided to close all government schools and offices. We at Javaabu also decided to follow the government’s lead and started working from home starting on the same date. It was at this time that we helped the Ministry of Education to develop and launch Filaa Online Learning Resources portal as part of their preparations for potential further school closures. The whole website was developed in just 24 hours with contributions from our full development team and done completely for free under our CSR.

While working from home in March, my business partner Jailam had the idea to finally launch the restaurant listing website idea he had been toying with for the past few years. So, with just 2 weeks of work, we were able to deploy food.mv.

All hell broke loose in Maldives when the first locally transmitted Covid-19 case was detected in the capital Male’ city on 15th April. Following this revelation, the capital city was put on an immediate curfew with a subsequent full lockdown that lasted for 2 months. At Javaabu, we didn’t return to working from office until July 1st. However, this didn’t last long as we again went back to working from home in August since there was a second wave of cases. Finally, in September we were able to resume normal working hours for good.

Personally for me, I had remained completely at home from 15th April till June 23rd, never stepping outside the house at all and getting everything delivered. During this time, my brother in law who was a front-line worker at MNDF, got taken to a quarantine facility as he had been a contact of a Covid-19 positive case. Alhamdhlillaahi, he turned out to be negative. However for the duration of the lockdown he wasn’t allowed to return to living at home since he was stationed on duty. So the only people at home were my 2 sisters and my 4 year old nephew. One of the most memorable moments from the lockdown was when we celebrated Eid al-Fitr at home and me leading the Eid prayers. Another unforgettable moment was when my sister trimmed shaved my hair for me at home, which predictably turned out to be a horrible haircut. Fortunately it grew back by the time I went out into public.

With the lockdown, the government had essentially shutdown. At Javaabu, the public sector is our primary client and so no new projects were coming. Even for delivered projects, all government payments were on hold. With the runway we had, we could last only 2 or 3 months without any extra revenue. Early on during the lockdown, it was pointed out to me by a friend that it was highly unlikely we would get any new work for the rest of the year, and he advised me that we should take contingency measures by either cutting the salaries or laying off our staff. It was then that I realized the gravity of our situation.

I had a long phone call with my partner Jailam to discuss what measures we could take at Javaabu. We didn’t want to take my friend’s advice as we felt that it’d be a betrayal to our staff during their hour of need. So we devised a plan to expedite the process of delivering existing projects and collecting payments from delivered ones. Alhamdhlillaahi, with this plan and the hard work of our team, we were able to survive 2020 without reducing the salary or letting go any of our staff. Still, there were one or two months where we had some delays in payments, yet we made sure our staff weren’t inconvenienced, by making sure our staff were paid first before me and my partner took our own salaries.

Enough of 2020, let’s talk about 2021 and take a moment to enjoy my New Year’s Eve tradition of light painting. Unlike last year, this new year’s eve, my very special someone wasn’t in the country to help me take my annual photo with me. So I thought to myself how could I take the photo all alone by myself. Then the brilliant idea struck me of using my drone to paint the numbers. So this year’s photo was taken at Rasfannu Beach which is the only place in Male’ City where you are legally allowed to fly drones. Initially I had trouble drawing the digits as I had to fly backwards since I needed to have the front navigation lights facing the camera. Eventually I got the hang of it and also figured out I could turn off the navigation lights in between numbers. The result, as you can see, is at the top of this post. You can download the full resolution image from my Flickr.

I am not usually one for new year’s resolutions. However since in recent years this blog and my photography hobby had been neglected, this year I want to make a resolution to publish at least 1 blog post each month and 1 photo each week. Let’s see if I can hold myself to this goal. Anyway, hope you like my photo, and wish your 2021 would be much better than your 2020! I leave you with a drone selfie of me taking this year’s annual photo. Cheers.