Esra’a Al Shafei

Esra'a is the co-founder of the Numun Fund and the founding director of Majal, a network that highlights under-reported and marginalized voices in West Asia and North Africa. She serves on the Boards of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Tor Project. Additionally, she recently established Surveillance Watch, an interactive map that discloses funding sources and affiliations in the surveillance industry.

Esra'a's project aims to increase awareness of the growing dangers and concerns associated with the funding and development of AI-driven surveillance technologies in the SWANA region. In particular, the project will amplify biases and human rights violations enabled by tech that disproportionately impact marginalized communities in the Gulf region. The project will also focus on the investor communities that enable and profit from these technologies in the Global Majority.