Atta Elayyan

Born in Kuwait,[6] and having Jordanian nationality,[7] Elayyan was of Palestinian ancestry, and his father was from the Abu Dis area of East Jerusalem.[2]

Beginning in the early 1990s, Elayyan lived in Corvallis, Oregon, where his father established a mosque and school.[8] There he attended Wilson Elementary School.[9] He later moved to Christchurch, as a preteen,[8] and attended Christchurch Boys' High School and the University of Canterbury's computer science programme.[9] His father, Mohammed Elayyan, co-founded one of the Christchurch mosques in 1993, a year after arriving in New Zealand.[9][10]

From 2002 until 2008, Elayyan was a member of the New Zealand-based Counter-Strike team, NewType.[11][12] He played Counter-Strike: Source professionally in this time, and won several competitions.[11] While a member of the Counter-Strike community, Elayyan participated in tournaments and posted on forums under the nicknames crazyarab and Cr@zyArab.[11][12][13]

Elayyan was the goalkeeper for the Canterbury United Futsal Dragons and had made 19 appearances for the New Zealand national futsal team. He won two national titles with the Canterbury team and was the recipient of New Zealand Football's futsal player of the year award in 2014.[11][14]

Elayyan had been coaching the Christchurch Boys' High School futsal team that had entered the secondary schools' national competition. This tournament was set to start on 25 March 2019.[15]

Memorial to Elayyan amongst the floral tributes on Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch

Elayyan was recognized as one of New Zealand’s top IT leaders and was named in the country's 100 most innovative chief information officers in information communications and technology in both 2017[16] and 2018.[17] In 2010 he co-founded Lazyworm Applications, a business specializing in the delivery of applications on Microsoft platforms. Lazyworm Applications were responsible for building a top selling YouTube app on Microsoft platform (MetroTube)[18] and a Twitter app on Microsoft platform (Tweetro).[19] He founded its services arm, LWA Solutions, in 2012, and remained its CEO until his death. He was also awarded the prestigious Microsoft MVP during this period.[20] During his time as CEO, LWA Solutions undertook major ventures with many of New Zealand's largest companies and corporations, including major virtual reality technology for Ports of Auckland which has been described as a world first.[19] LWA Solutions was a finalist in the 2015 Microsoft Partner Awards.

Elayyan was one of fifty-one killed in the Christchurch mosque shootings on 15 March 2019.[21][22] After his death, several donation initiatives were started by close friends to assist Elayyan's family, including a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than £25,000 and a Give A Little campaign that raised about $196,000. Mohammed Elayyan was also shot and wounded in the attacks and survived.[10]

Elayyan was married and is survived by his wife and daughter, who was 2 years old at the time of his death.[11][13] The couple married in 2015, and she is from Jordan.[23]