Guest post by Trish Tierney
Naif Al-Mutawa: The continuing saga of The99, superheroes inspired by Islam from TED Blog on Vimeo.
The second day of WISE focused on Achieving Effective Reforms, and I attended a fantastic session entitled Learning from Game Changers. One of the speakers, in particular, was exciting not just due to his incredible experience and the impact he is having on his community and beyond, but also because of the potential link with TechWomen.
Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa is Chairman/CEO of Teshkeel, a business that aims to create exciting animated television programs for young families and children throughout the world, offering new role models of superheroes born of Middle East history and Islamic archetypes that possess values shared by the entire world. He is a dynamic speaker, and I spoke with him after to tell him about TechWomen, and especially about the Mentee from Lebanon that is working on creating cartoon characters that will inspire young women to enter technical fields. He agreed to speak with them, so I look forward to introducing them so they can learn from his experience and ideas.
Naif has been named one of “The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World” by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in concert with Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He has received the Eliot-Pearson Award for Excellence in Children’s Media from Tufts University, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations “ Marketplace of Ideas” Award, The Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Award presented at the 2009 World Economic Forum, and has been named as one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders for 2011.
Trish Tierney is Executive Director, Institute of International Education West Coast Center. She is attending the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), an initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development.
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