2 Egyptians, 21 Arabs, Africans on BBC’s list of 100 most influential women in 2019

22 / 10 / 2019

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• Sustainable Development
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The BBC’s  list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019 included two Egyptians, 11 Arabs and 11 Africans.

The two Egyptians are artificial intelligence pioneer Rana El Kalioby and renowned swimmer Farida Osman.

Rana El Kalioby is a pioneer of artificial emotional intelligence, or Emotion AI. Her start-up Affectiva has developed software that can understand emotions by analyzing facial expressions through a camera.

The technology is being installed in vehicles to detect sleepy drivers. Also a passionate advocate for gender equity in tech and AI, Rana El Kalioby is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a post-doctorate from MIT.

Farida Osman, nicknamed ‘the golden fish’, became the first woman in Egypt to win a medal in 2017 when she claimed bronze in the 50m butterfly at the FINA World Aquatics Championships.

She won another bronze this year. She gives lectures at universities to inspire the younger generation to pursue swimming, and is training to fulfill her ambition of winning a medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Osman said “My hope for the future is to have more female athletes excel at their sport in order to represent Egypt well internationally. I want them to believe in their dreams and do whatever it takes until it becomes a reality.”

The list also included two Syrian women; Marwa Al-Sabouni and Noor Shaker. Al-Sabouni played an outstanding role in documenting the time of war when it broke out in her home city of Homs which she refused to leave. She has drawn up plans to rebuild the destroyed Baba Amr district, in a way that would bring different classes and ethnic groups together.

Al-Sabouni runs the world’s only website dedicated to architectural news in Arabic, and has received the Prince Claus award, which honors “outstanding achievement of visionaries at the front-line of culture and development”.

Also, Syria’s Noor Shaker, a computer scientist, left Syria for Europe in 2008 to follow her passion for Artificial Intelligence. After a successful decade in academia, she turned her skills toward entrepreneurial innovation. Motivated by her mother’s fight against cancer, Shaker was compelled to bring her knowledge of AI to the medical world.

The result is a ground-breaking technique using AI to design new medicines faster than humans. Her work has attracted the attention of some of the top global pharmaceutical companies, and she has been named one of MIT’s ‘Innovators under 35’.

The list also included three Lebanese women. Lebanon’s poet Dayna Ash, a cultural activist born in Lebanon but raised in the US, founded Haven for Artists, an all-inclusive organization for artists and activists, and the city’s only cultural and creative safe space for women and the LGBTQI+ community. She and her team run the center for free, allowing vulnerable people to live in the residence and encouraging them to exchange tools, skills, and experience.

Also, Lebanon’s Ayah Bdeir, an entrepreneur, was also on the list. Branded as 21st Century building blocks, Ayah Bdeir’s littleBits company makes kits of electronic blocks that snap together with magnets, allowing anyone to “build, prototype, and invent”.

Already used in thousands of schools across the US, this year Ayah launched a $4m value initiative with Disney to try and close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, (STEM), supplying 15,000 10-year-old girls in California with free littleBits kits.

She said “I am on a mission to make sure every kid — regardless of gender, background, or ethnicity — has the skills to invent the world they want.”

Lebanon’s Chemistry Professor Najat Saliba was also placed on the list for conducting a world-leading research on polluted air. She grew up on her family’s farm in rural Lebanon, but when civil war prompted a move to the city, she was awakened to the disturbing realities of air pollution.

After watching relatives, friends and colleagues develop health complications as a result of exposure to toxic substances in the environment, she hopes her innovative work with a Beirut university will make it possible to address some of the most pressing environmental challenges.

The list also included Saudi Arabia’s Manal AlDowayan, a contemporary artist. AlDowayan’s work explores invisibility, archives, memory and the representation of women in her country. From black and white photographs of Saudi Arabia’s female workforce, to a frozen flock of birds imprinted with the permission slip Saudi women require to travel.

In 2018, the British Museum placed two of her artworks on long-term display in the Islamic Gallery.

Also, Kuwait’s  Alanoud Alsharekh, women’s rights activist, was also on the list for being a founding member of the Abolish 153 campaign, calling for Kuwait’s “honor-killing” law to be scrapped.

She works with institutions to improve gender equality in the Middle East, and was the first Kuwaiti awarded France’s National Order of Merit, for her defense of women’s rights.

She said “Training and empowering future female leaders is a major issue that I am doing my part to see resolved in the immediate future, not only in Kuwait but across the region.”

Moreover, Libya’s peace campaigner Rida Al Tubuly, who was also placed on the list, is one of many women pushing for gender equality – but she’s doing it from a warzone. Her organization, Together We Build It, pushes for women’s involvement in solving Libya’s conflict.

In 2018, she told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that high level UN meetings about Libya’s future were failing to include women.

The list also included an Algerian woman, a Tunisian one and a Yemeni. Algeria’s singer Raja Meziane was on the list because of the wide effect of her social and political songs.

Tunisia’s Hayfa Sdiri, an entrepreneur, was also on the list. At 16, Hayfa founded not-for-profit Entrcrush, an online platform for future entrepreneurs where they could be matched with donors, and take e-courses in areas like management and accounting.She works with the UN in Tunisia on gender equality initiatives.

Yemen’s lawyer Samah Subay has worked tirelessly in difficult circumstances since the war in Yemen which started in 2015. She provides legal support to families whose children have ‘disappeared’.

This year her team at Mwatana for Human Rights managed to reunite some of these families, though she continues to advocate for the release and education of many more children still in detention.

She said “The time will come when people will be convinced in the pointlessness of wars. Then change will come, including legislative changes in terms of the rights of women specifically and Yemeni people in general.”

The list also included eleven African women; two from Uganda, two from Sudan and one from each Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, DR Congo, Kenya, Senegal and Mauritania.

Uganda’s farmer Judith Bakirya was on the list as it was the first of her peers to win a scholarship to a prestigious girls’ boarding school, going on to obtain a masters in the UK and a job in the City.

But unsatisfied in her work, she quit, using her savings to fly home and found an organic fruit farm, Busaino Fruits & Herbs. Since winning a national agriculture award, she has used the platform to draw attention to women’s rights issues, including lack of land ownership, lack of access to education and domestic violence.

She said “Working with women smallholder garden owners in innovative ways, honoring indigenous knowledge and developing biodiverse agroecosystems, promotes sustainable food production and nutrition.”

Also, Uganda’s life coach Purity Wako was on the list due to her role in helping Ugandan women feel empowered in their relationships. She is calling for all women to have legal rights in marriage.

She said “Freedom for women is the salvation of future generations. We cannot continue to live in the past. We need to be loud – there are few women who speak up because they fear the judgment of society. Let’s teach these girls to love themselves and believe in themselves.”

The list also included two Sudanese women; Gada Kadoda and Ahlam Khudr, who proclaimed herself as ‘mother of all Sudanese martyrs’.

Ghada Kadoda helps women in remote areas use solar power to bring electricity to their villages by training them as community engineers. She was named a Unicef innovator to watch as the driving force behind Sudan’s first innovation lab, giving students a space for collaborative working and problem-solving. She is the founder of the Sudanese Knowledge Society, which gives young researchers the opportunity to freely interact with scientists and scholars from inside and outside the country.

Meanwhile, Nigerian-Bahraini athlete Salwa Eid Naser was on the list. Salwa Eid Naser stunned the field in the 400m final in Doha this year by running faster than any woman has done for more than three decades.

The reigning 400m world champion was born in Anambra State, Nigeria, but moved to Bahrain at 14 seeking opportunities to further her running career. She now represents the Gulf State internationally.

South Africa’s rights activist Lucinda Evans was listed due to her role in confronting rising rates of murder and rape against women and girls in the African state. She leads nationwide marches, rallying thousands of women in the streets of Cape Town, challenging government to translate policy into action.

Evans founded Philisa Abafazi Bethu (Heal our Women), a non-profit organization offering services including counseling, search committees for kidnapped girls and safe houses for women escaping domestic abuse.

The list also comprised Tanzania’s doctor and scientist Julie Makani who dedicated the past two decades to research on treatment of Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) births  disease. She also worked to influence health policies so that individuals across Africa can access vital diagnostic tests and medicines.

She is trying to establish life-changing interventions including blood transfusion and hydroxyurea, a medicine with strong effects on the bone marrow— a step towards the treatment of Sickle Cell Disease. Now she is researching a cure using gene therapy.

Also, DR Congo’s food entrepreneur Benedicte Mundele was listed due to her efforts to confront food poverty. When Benedicte looked around the Democratic Republic of Congo, she could see plenty of raw produce from potato to passionfruit, but still people were living in food poverty.

She says supermarkets were full of products originally grown in DR Congo, but exported out, processed with preservatives, before being reimported at expensive prices. She founded Surprise Tropical, a food canteen serving healthy, takeaway food in the suburbs of the capital, Kinshasa. Five years on, the company’s online business delivers fresh produce throughout the city.

Kenya’s digital equity expert Nanjira Sambuli was placed on the list due to her leadership of the World Wide Web Foundation in its bid to increase digital equality. She looks for solutions to ensure nobody is left behind when it comes to web access, whether disadvantaged by gender or geography.

“My hope is that we see it happen more and more, and not only when women are ‘given’ positions to fulfill diversity quotas or clean up messes. We have a ways to go for ‘The Female Future’ to unleash its true potential to heal the world,” she said.

Senegal’s Kalista Sy, a screenwriter/producer, was also on the list. Self-taught screenwriter Kalista Sy’s TV series Mistress of a Married Man sent shock waves through her home country when it was released earlier this year.

Dubbed ‘Senegal’s Sex and the City’, the viral sensation features sexually liberated, hard-working and successful female characters who address the struggles of women in West Africa, from polygamy to domestic abuse and mental health issues.

Finally, Mauritania’s microfinance expert Aïssata Lam claimed a corner among the most influential 100 women for setting up setting up the Youth Chamber of Commerce of Mauritania to support young women entrepreneurs struggling to access funding for their start-ups.

She is a vocal advocate for women’s rights, using her platform to honor exceptional Mauritanian women, and was appointed to the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council by French President Emmanuel Macron.

She believes that “The time is coming when women’s voices cannot be silenced, nor ignored. The time is coming when women’s equal participation in today’s most pressing issues is necessary. The time is coming when women’s seat at the table is non-negotiable. This time is now.”