For the first time in Egypt, AUC will host a hub for the 2026 Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab (HSIL) Hackathon, exploring the use of AI in healthcare.  

“For the six editions prior to this year, we had no representation from Egypt or anywhere else in North Africa, and we think that there's a lot to capitalize on at AUC and in the Egyptian community that can help advance healthcare problems,” said Seham Elmrayed, assistant professor at AUC’s Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology and hackathon task force lead.

Innovators across five continents and 41 institutions will brainstorm and design functional prototypes to address global challenges facing health systems under this year’s theme “Building High-Value Health Systems: Leveraging AI.” Interested participants can apply through AUC as a hub until March 23, 2026. “AUC brings an interdisciplinary ecosystem, making it the right choice to collaborate on this great initiative,” said a representative of the Health Systems Innovation Lab.

The hackathon will be held from April 10 to 11 and winning teams will be invited into the HSIL Venture Incubation Program, an eight-week remote bootcamp offering structured educational sessions, mentorship and access to investors — culminating in a Global Demo Day.

“The American University in Cairo brings an interdisciplinary ecosystem making it the right choice to collaborator on this great initiative.,” said HSIL Hackathon lead Alem Aminu Osman. “Egypt was selected as a partner country due to its strategic role in the region, its rapidly evolving digital health landscape and its opportunity to address complex health system challenges at scale. The goal is to foster locally grounded solutions with regional relevance, while integrating Egypt into a broader global innovation network across 50+ hubs.”

Since 2018, the HSIL Hackathon has convened clinicians, engineers, economists and professionals around the world to develop solutions to global challenges in health systems. 

Through the support of the School of Sciences and Engineering, Elmrayed spent last summer at Harvard studying the application of AI in healthcare and convening with leading minds in the field. Elmrayed now teaches a graduate class on AI introduction and applications in healthcare, and says the experience pushed her to bring the hackathon to AUC.

“I think the hub complements this vision we have at AUC and the School of Sciences and Engineering, where we want to bring real-world problems to the class. We think of our students as the workforce that can help lead such changes because the disruptions in the healthcare system and every other system are unprecedented. “You don’t want that gap between what you teach and what you apply,” Elmrayed says.

Elmrayed notes that artificial intelligence has already begun to support healthcare professionals in synthesizing large quantities of data. As health systems worldwide are burdened with challenges like workforce burnout, AI can produce predictive insights and classify diseases to make healthcare interventions more timely and effective. Even with new technologies, the focus remains on decision making and proper application.

“AI technologies do not equal clinical significance, application or clinical performance,” Elmrayed says. “You have to think through the application. You have to think through adaptability.”

Egypt’s role as a hub allows innovators to share ideas and translate these technologies into a local context.

“Healthcare systems are shared globally, but they manifest in locally defined or context-dependent ways,” Elmrayed says. “Unless you have local innovation, you're not going to be able to translate any of these AI advancements and technologies into something meaningful to serve the communities we want to serve.”

Freshman Amina Orfi loves a tight shot, when the squash racket whips the ball straight along the wall, making it difficult to receive and react to. 

It’s a shot she’s practiced many times — and one of many that have brought her to be ranked third in the world in squash. 

“I love the process itself, training and getting better, fixing my mistakes and obviously the thrill of winning. That match point when you win a tough match — it's really what makes me happy."

In July 2025, Orfi became the first athlete to win the World Squash Junior Championships four times and in October 2025 became the youngest ever to reach world number 3. 

At 18 years old, she’s preparing for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, where squash will make its debut as an Olympic sport, while balancing her first-year studies in economics as a recipient of AUC’s Excellence Scholarship. 

Keeping her vision aligned with her goals is the backbone a discipline Orfi applies to her academics and athletic goals. Managing a class-load, plus tournaments and training was a new challenge, but Orfi says communication with her professors has allowed her to hit her stride during her second semester at AUC.

Orfi chose to study economics to open new doors in the far future when she retires from squash. “I find it to be a bit interesting, and it's something I think I can balance well with squash,” Orfi said, “It's a very practical major.”

But for right now, she’s just getting started. 

Born to Play

Egypt is the home of international squash. International squash legends and the highest ranked players in the world hail from the courts of Om el Donia: current world No. 1 Hania El Hammamy ’23 and Asal Mostafa, No. 2 Nour El Sherbini, No. 5 Nouran Gohar ’21 and more call Egypt home. 

Orfi first picked up a racket at 5 years old and stuck with it. Youth squash in Cairo is a pressure-cooker, and Orfi began playing competitively at 8 years old in weeklong tournaments of 200 athletes playing to take the top rank. She says it's what created her competitive spirit.

Squash is a sport where you and your opponent are trapped in a box, and only one person walks out the winner. It’s a mental game and the desire to win, cultivated in the courts of Cairo, has helped Orfi climb through international competitions in the United Kingdom, United States and Singapore.

She has won and lost matches against legends she grew up watching, winning against Nour El Sherbini in the semi-finals of the 2025 U.S Open Squash. Better known as ‘the Warrior Princess,’ El Sherbini is the current number 2 in the world and is currently tied for the world record of most women’s squash World Open titles.

“Seeing someone that you've been watching ever since you were growing up and finding them all over the news and social media, and then to compete and beat them, it meant a lot. It gave me a lot of motivation.”

“I really want to get to world number one and make the Olympics. Having these goals helps direct my mind in a positive way instead of thinking about the pressure.”

Orfi has spent over a decade of her life playing squash competitively, and her family has supported her all the way. “I know the amount of effort they put into this for me to achieve my dream. It means a lot to me, and I really enjoy when I win and see them proud,” Orfi said.

Orfi joined the professional circuit at 15, traveling more often and playing in professional environments with mature and experienced players five to ten years her senior. The switch was initially intimidating, but Orfi says what helped her adjust was knowing that as the young underdog, she had nothing to lose.

“I just wanted to play my best squash and show what I'm capable of,” she said. 

Now that she’s aged out of being the underdog, Orfi faces a new pressure to keep her space in the top three and climb toward the first position. She practices six times a week to stay sharp, in two sessions a day alternating between drills, fitness and match play.

“I think it's more pressure, but having goals and things you want to achieve lifts that pressure because you don't think about it as much. You just think about what you want to do and what you want to achieve,” she said.

The next goal? Playing in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

“I really want to get to world number one and make the Olympics. Having these goals helps direct my mind in a positive way instead of thinking about the pressure.”

Can data be sexist? Does artificial intelligence have the ability to discriminate? 

As AI has developed rapidly over the past decade, researchers have discovered the real-world harm of potential bias in the data and the ways it disproportionately affects women and marginalized groups. Through the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at  the Onsi Sawiris School of Business, and its flagship initiative the MENA Observatory on Responsible AI, Nagla Rizk ’83, ’87, professor of economics and founding director of A2K4D, is leading the Feminist AI Research Network’s MENA hub. The network aims to develop AI systems and algorithms in a way that is inclusive, creating new opportunities and innovative solutions to correct inequalities.

So what is feminist AI? Rizk explained, “Feminist AI refers to the act of deconstructing oppressive systems, dismantling historic biases and engrained inequalities, then building inclusive AI structures that are based on principles of justice, transparency, agency, pluralism and more.” In short, it is the development and maintenance of artificial intelligence systems that ensure fairness across genders. AI has the potential to amplify biases and generate new ones. Feminist AI works to deconstruct these biases and create innovative solutions from within the data and algorithm design, addressing these inequalities. 

Feminist AI is closely linked to the principle of  “intersectionality” which refers to the  “interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems discrimination or disadvantage.” Rizk added, “It is, in short, when oppression is linked.”

AI: Friend or Foe?

Humans have implicit biases, and when we create algorithms and AI models that rely on big data, those biases can unintentionally be amplified. Rizk seeks to find places where there may be  data blur, data bias and data invisibility—and address these issues from the root.

“Technology has the potential to advance development, inclusion and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, there is also a peril,” Rizk stated. “As humans build AI models–with data and algorithms at their core—in every link of this chain lies a trigger for potential inequality. This could negatively impact women and marginalized groups. So it's important to think of inclusion when designing AI models.”

Data can be biased against women on both the micro and macro scales. For example, if you do an image search for the word  ‘doctor’ on Google, 36% of results are women, whereas if you search up ‘domestic helper,’ 96% of results are women. Expanding out, Amazon’s AI hiring tools were more likely to prefer male candidates, as they were trained on male-dominated data from the tech industry. Apple-approved credit cards for candidates based on a biased data set would grant men 10-20 times higher credit than their wives. “These structural flaws in the data compound systemic issues that women already face, such as gender-based hiring, pay gaps and lack of financial security,” said Rizk.

Data also has ways of forgetting women. For example, the first iteration of Apple’s health app did not include women’s monthly health cycles. Additionally, there have been cases when diagnosing cardiovascular diseases, AI models have reproduced gender biases that exist in the real world and are less likely to take women’s symptoms seriously. “If women are invisible in the data, they will be invisible in the policy,” Rizk warned.

 “If women are invisible in the data, they will be invisible in the policy."

“If we don't adopt a feminist sensitive approach to technology, we risk leaving behind a key part of the population. We also risk running into problems that will need to be fixed later after they’ve already caused damage,” explained Rizk. “The important point is that feminist AI is proactive. It is transformational.”

The Feminist AI MENA hub is working within the larger network now labelled as “Catalyzing Inclusive AI Research Network” with support from Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Feminist AI research strives to take forward-looking steps that dismantle patriarchal structures, oppressive systems and historical inequalities inherent in technology and society in both the digital and analogue worlds. The hub’s work seeks to support the construction of inclusive systems that overcome biases, based on feminist principles, addressing  intersectionality, and ensuring diversity in representation and justice in the building, deployment and impact of AI.

A MENA-Specific Approach to AI and Gender

From research to large scale collaborations with NGOs and government partners, the Feminist AI MENA hub is working to catalyze inclusive AI for development. Rizk emphasized the importance of looking at AI and gender inequality in the MENA-specific context, “The MENA region has its own nuances which require a region-specific response.”

One example of the work supported by the hub is research developing Arabic feminist data sets as part of a larger project to apply data feminism principles to assess bias in English and Arabic Natural Language processing. Another is work supported by the hub to develop an AI tutoring system to assist teachers to teach math in Arabic to girls of different ages in underprivileged community schools in Upper Egypt (Sa’eed). There, girls unfortunately do not receive the same schooling opportunities as boys and require additional support. In both examples, AI is used as a tool that, if properly controlled for potential biases, promotes equal opportunity between the genders. 

Encouraging STEM education for women is crucial to increase the gender balance in the design of technology. In the MENA region, the gender gap is much more pronounced in the area of STEM work than it is in STEM education. This is termed “the gender paradox.” The absence of women in STEM work creates a “feedback loop” where the algorithm is not gender sensitive and ends up discriminating against women. This is both a product of the culture and cycles back into it. 

“If we don't adopt a feminist sensitive approach to technology, we risk leaving behind a key part of the population."

Examples of algorithmic biases in MENA can be found in implicit biases in gig work app algorithms evidenced by the hub’s research on gig work, following earlier research on women in ride sharing in Egypt, and work with research partners in the region. In ride sharing apps, the fact that bonuses are determined by algorithms based on the number of hours of work automatically means that women will be discriminated against as they put in less work hours due to their home care responsibilities. To make up for that, women end up driving at odd surge hours, subjecting themselves to safety hazards, especially in remote areas with limited connectivity. Because they carry the labor of being care givers, women are likely to be punished by ride-sharing app algorithms. This compounds the challenges of this work, which is already precarious lacking job security, social protection and insurance. With the region experiencing the highest global female unemployment rate and the lowest global female labor participation rate, these women end up being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

By performing evidence-based research directly in the region, the Feminist AI MENA hub can better support transformational technology development and bring those findings to the international feminist AI network. “Technology is a product of society, and should respond to the needs of society. What we hope for is that technology is informed by what is going on in reality.” Therefore, added Rizk, “the technology for the MENA region has to speak to the needs of the MENA region.”

Rizk and her colleagues plan on continuing to develop region-sensitive research, and bringing their findings to policy makers, civil society, and the international research network. Outside of the hub, Rizk is taking these principles into the classroom through teaching the course Feminist AI: Technology, Gender and Development. “It gave students a different perspective on using technology,” Rizk said, describing the impact she saw in her students. “We had two male students conduct research on the need to use feminist AI principles in FinTech. To me, it was really fulfilling to have students be aware of how you could actually implement principles of responsible AI.”

“We want to raise awareness and deliver a message of fairness, justice and inclusion,” Rizk concluded. “To be a feminist, you must always be sympathetic to all marginalized communities, not just to women. Therefore, technology must be inclusive to all. We work towards that future.”

Zeina Ghanem ’21 joined AUC to study business and minor in psychology, but a class field visit to a public hospital sparked her passion for psychology and studying the mind.

“I saw how fascinating the brain is,” Ghanem said. “How someone could be living in their own world, not in a very positive way, and then someone else could offer some help and make this person's life so much easier and better with time.”

 “If you create this safe space as a therapist, no matter the differences you have with the person in front of you, they will be willing to open up.”

Ghanem is a counseling psychologist working online and offline to provide youth and adults with support on their mental health journey.

Her passion for women’s mental health grew while pursuing her master’s in counseling psychology from the American College of Greece, where she completed a yearlong practicum at a refugee center for women in Athens. Fluency in English and Arabic helped Ghanem hold group therapy sessions with women from across the world, including many Arabic -speakers and women fleeing the war in Ukraine. She worked with women across cultural divides, translating experiences back and forth during group therapy sessions.

“This was really helpful in seeing the differences and the similarities in terms of the shared experience of being women, no matter where they're coming from or what their experience is,” Ghanem says.

Working as a counseling psychologist for women of all ages gave her growth through the stages of life and different challenges people face along the way. “Many women start seeking help when they’re in their 40s or 50s. By then, the patterns are already established and have been going on for years. So usually for them, it's a life-changing experience,” Ghanem says, attributing the late start on therapy to a lack of psychoeducation and the stigmatization of mental health when they were younger.

However, Ghanem has noticed younger women increasingly seeking mental health support, reflecting the broader global rise in awareness and acceptance of mental health care.
“I would say the most common issues that usually young girls come with are related to their identity, confidence and social pressure,” Ghanem said.

“A big part of [therapy] usually goes around helping them understand themselves, who they are, understand their bodies, how hormones could affect their behavior or their mood, and how to handle it.”

Ghanem explains that many young women often come to therapy with high-functioning anxiety, feeling the need to accomplish in many areas in their lives all at once: build a career, be in a healthy relationship and build a family, while taking care of their physical and mental health.

“In that case the anxiety is masked as ambition and of course this leaves them exhausted and burnt out,” Ghanem said.

After graduation, Ghanem took a gap year to train at public and private hospitals and clinics around Egypt exploring the clinical side of psychology. The experience helped her narrow her focus on counseling psychology and helping individuals work through their problems one on one.

"I felt like this is something that I would want to do, to have more of a personal impact on someone's life, and not necessarily be working for a corporation or like a huge entity. It doesn't have to be huge, even if it's just a one-on-one effect on a much smaller scale.”

Developing the client-therapist relationship to allow someone to express their emotions is a gradual process of creating trust and good communication. “You hear their story and give them space to open up and be comfortable,” Ghanem said. “If you create this safe space as a therapist, no matter the differences you have with the person in front of you, they will be willing to open up.”

Ghanem hopes to expand her practice of helping people through their toughest challenges, running awareness campaigns and looking for new ways to raise mental health awareness in large settings. In the meantime, she says finding mental health support is easier than you think.

“Just don’t be afraid to ask for help,” she affirmed.
 

March 8 marks International Women’s Day, celebrating women’s achievements and highlighting the ways we can work together to improve the quality of life for women and girls worldwide. Helen Rizzo, associate professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology and the director of the Cynthia Nelson Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies, sat down with News@AUC to discuss the history of this holiday and the impact it has on feminism worldwide. 

“The history of International Women’s Day is quite interesting, as it’s always been tied to women’s labor movements,” Rizzo explained. 

The first International Women’s Day took place in 1909, hosted by the Socialist Party in the United States, celebrating women’s participation in the workforce. As an arm of first-wave feminism, these early women’s days were centered around ending gender discrimination in employment as well as women’s suffrage. The day was a way to highlight the issues facing women and celebrate the achievements that had been made. By 1914, March 8, which so happened to be the Sunday that year, spread across Europe as a day for women to raise their voices and be heard. 

As time passed, International Women’s Day continued to evolve. “In the 1960s and 1970s, second-wave feminism caused a revival in celebrating March 8,” Rizzo continued. “The Women's History Center, which was an archive of the women's movement in Berkeley, went even further and established March as Women's History Month in the United States. Then, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day in 1975 to commemorate this day for women's rights and international peace. That’s when it truly became a global phenomenon.”

Having a globally focused women’s day allows for feminist scholars to engage with the transnational ways women’s issues affect each other. For gender practitioners, offering support across borders is incredibly important for gender parity worldwide. There are many ways to celebrate International Women’s Day, but a major part is analyzing how to improve the status of women globally. The United Nations declared the theme for the 2026 International Women’s Day to be ‘Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls,’ emphasizing the importance of a global perspective. 

“The UN lists the areas where women are still unequal, which includes unemployment, the wage gap as well as violence in the workplace, the home and public spaces,” Rizzo explained. “There are still all kinds of issues where we need to make progress. The UN has a statistic that it will take over 200 years to close legal protection gaps. We’re facing the same issues we faced 100 years ago, which is why this day is still important.”

"We’re facing the same issues we faced 100 years ago, which is why this day is still important.”

Highlighting the areas she believes the international community must continue to focus on, Rizzo noted, “There are many critical issues that disproportionately affect women. Gender-based violence can be devastating for many women and girls. Armed conflict and wars, combined with political violence, disproportionately harm women.” . 

With education, we’re still not there yet, Rizzo explained. “There has been a lot of improvement in women’s education. However, there are still areas, even in this region, where women face high barriers to education. We’re also seeing issues where women receive an education, but that doesn’t translate into employment or equal wages.” 

Wage inequality is prevalent across the world and still heavily impacts Egypt, Rizzo said, adding that family law is still a topic in the region that needs reform in order to reach gender equality. “Without equal rights within marriages and family relations, women are more restricted and have fewer access to protections,” she said.

While these issues might feel overwhelming, Rizzo emphasized the power we as individuals have to make a difference. “Spreading information and performing research as a University is a critical step in helping women and girls,” she affirmed. “Having a public reminder to everyone that we still need to work on issues of inequality and discrimination is essential. It’s important to provide evidence that inequality is still there. The research we do at AUC can work in tandem with NGOs, social movements and international organizations that can translate into policy recommendations and social change.”

“Spreading information and performing research as a University is a critical step in helping women and girls."

In addition, Rizzo expressed that both men and women are critical parts of achieving gender equality. Men too are hurt by the standards set up by the patriarchy: They’re not encouraged to express a range of emotions, there is less room for them to explore “feminine” fields and they are often placed into societal boxes. While International Women’s Day focuses on women, achieving gender parity helps people of all sexes. “It’s critical to have men as allies in feminist spaces,” Rizzo stated. “Gender equality does not merely mean rights for women. It means equality overall, and that includes men.”

Looking toward the future of gender equality, Rizzo believes it's essential to have as many gender practitioners as possible. An engaged, active look into gender equality is now more important than ever before. There are growing attacks on academic freedom in the Global North, and funding toward women’s studies has been severely cut and departments and programs have been shut down in places like the United States, she stated. 

“I went to a workshop in Morocco last year where they invited the directors of gender and women’s studies centers from across the Middle East and North Africa region. The goal was to try to map academic departments, research centers and NGOs focused on women’s rights across the region to form a support network,” Rizzo shared. 

"Global gender equality must be based in all parts of the world, and there is plenty of action we can take from the Middle East."

The workshop was funded by the United Nations and the women’s section of the Arab League, and will lead to an official UN report. “Given what’s happening to gender studies programs in the United States, it’s time for our region to step up,” Rizzo concluded. “Global gender equality must be based in all parts of the world, and there is plenty of action we can take from the Middle East. International Women’s Day is a time where we can appreciate the action that’s been made and figure out how moving forward will benefit as many women as possible.”