Author: Amina Mirza

Every two minutes, somewhere in the world, a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. Not because the world does not know how to save her. But because too often, the care does not reach her in time. For Isra Chaker, that reality is not just heartbreaking. It is unacceptable. Through Every Pregnancy, Chaker is building a maternal and newborn health movement focused on one urgent mission: helping mothers and babies survive pregnancy, birth, and the earliest days of life. Since the launch of the For Mama campaign in 2024, Every Pregnancy has mobilized nearly $130 million for…

For Mohammed Yousuf, disability inclusion is not an abstract mission. It is personal. Born in India, Yousuf became a polio survivor at a very young age. Growing up with a disability in an environment where accessibility was extremely limited shaped nearly every part of his early life. Education, mobility, opportunity, and dignity were not always easily accessible—not because of a lack of ability, but because the systems around him were not designed to include people like him. Those experiences could have become barriers. Instead, they became the foundation for his life’s work. Today, as the founder of EquallyAble Foundation, Mohammed…

Consider a simple question: how many times have you ignored a call, or had someone ignore yours? Now consider what happens if that call was an emergency—not the kind where the police or an ambulance is the right answer, but the kind where you need your people around you, immediately. It is the kind of question that tends to get overlooked precisely because existing systems make us feel covered. But for Naeem Noor Mahomed, returning to South Africa after more than a decade abroad, the gap between feeling safe and actually being safe was impossible to ignore. SOSSA was built…

In healthcare, the gap between clinical excellence and operational efficiency is rarely discussed—but it is consistently felt. Providers trained to deliver care spend significant portions of their time navigating billing systems, managing patient follow-up, and addressing administrative gaps that compound quietly in the background. Revenue is lost not through clinical failure, but through operational friction. For Ibraz Shaikh, this was not an abstract observation. It was something he witnessed firsthand, across more than 15 years of working inside hospitals, clinics, and healthcare organizations throughout the United States. MedSync365 and SurgiCore Medical Group were built from that experience. A Career Shaped…

The MENA startup ecosystem raised a record $7.5 billion in 2025, a 225 percent increase on the previous year. Capital is moving. Investor interest is growing. And yet, for the majority of early-stage founders building outside of Dubai or Riyadh, the practical question remains unchanged: where do you actually go to find the tools, the co-founders, the mentors, and the investors you need to build a company from the ground up? That question is one that Urooj Zia and Faizan Laghari have spent years watching founders fail to answer. Not because the founders lacked ability, but because the infrastructure to…