Past Member

Esra'a Al Shafei

Former Director's Fellow
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Esra'a Al Shafei is a Bahraini human rights activist and founder of Majal.org, an organization that develops platforms to amplify underrepresented and marginalized voices in the Middle East and North Africa. With her team, Al Shafei builds web products that creatively facilitate the struggle for social justice in the region. Platforms they have developed include CrowdVoice.org, an open source tool that curates and contextualizes data on social movements; Mideast Tunes, the largest platform for regional underground musicians who use music for advocacy; and Ahwaa.org, a bilingual tool for LGBTQ youth in the Middle East which leverages game mechanics to enable high-quality interactions. Al Shafei was previously a Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, an Echoing Green Fellow, and a Senior TED Fellow. She has received the Berkman Award from Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society for “outstanding contributions to the internet and its impact on society” and in 2011, Fast Company featured her as one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business.” The same year, Al Shafei was awarded the Monaco Media Prize, which acknowledges innovative uses of media for the betterment of humanity.