With the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, News@AUC spoke with Ibrahim Awad, research professor in global affairs and director of AUC’s Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, to examine the migratory, economic and political consequences of the conflict in the region.

Growing Refugee Crisis

A large mass displacement of international refugees depends on how long the conflict lasts, the level of violence and whether both seriously affect Iranian society, Awad noted. 

Nevertheless, he signaled that internal displacement is already occurring in Iran and Lebanon. According to a UNHCR estimate, between 600,000 to 1 million Iranian households are temporarily displaced due to the conflict, which has killed 1,400 people in Iran and 826 in Lebanon. Initial estimates of 100,000 people fled Tehran in the first two days of the war. With Israel announcing a ground incursion into Lebanon, 815,000 people from Beirut and southern Lebanon have also been displaced. 

Awad noted that Gulf states have a large population of migrant workers from the Arab World, Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe whom work in all the sectors of their economies and send remittances home. For countries that receive large amounts of remittances, this could hurt economies abroad.

“If economic activity is affected in the Gulf for a long period of time, the enterprises that hire migrant workers might not be able to keep them,” he said. “This affects employment because some workers may return to their countries of origin, constituting pressures on their labor markets. It will also affect remittances that they send to their countries of origin, and these remittances are important sources of foreign exchange in most cases.”

Economic Repercussions 

Stopping the war and finding a solution acceptable to both parties in the conflict is the only way to avoid a severe economic impact, Awad declared.

“If the war continues, the economic repercussions will be heavier and heavier,” he said. “So there’s no way to mitigate these repercussions while the war is going on.” He listed rising oil,  gas, food prices and inflation more generally as well as a slowdown of international trade as factors that will impact the global economy.”

Awad explained that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will spark repercussions in the Suez Canal and regional economies, noting how the Egyptian pound fell from EGP 47 to 52 against the dollar in the past week. On March 10, the price of gasoline rose from EGP 10 to EGP 13 per cubic metre. “These are the economic reasons why the region, including Egypt, wanted to avoid this war at all costs,” he stated.

About one-fifth of the world’s oil production is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed by the war. Oil prices are currently volatile, with the price of crude surging to $110 a barrel on Monday, still higher than the pre-war price of $73. 

Awad emphasized that a closed Strait of Hormuz could make Europe’s opposition to importing Russian oil and gas increasingly difficult if the war continues, causing pressure for large oil-importing countries in the European continent and beyond. The closure sparked the United States to ease sanctions for countries purchasing Russian oil and petroleum, a move rejected by Germany, France, Norway and the United Kingdom. A closure of the strait could also raise the price of foodstuffs worldwide, Awad explained, as it will prevent shipments of natural gas used to manufacture fertilizers. 

Awad also noted that regional tourism is likely to drop sharply, while the closure of airspace across Gulf states has disrupted international travel, causing financial strain for airlines and economic pressure on tourism-dependent countries like Egypt. These shifts reflect how regional instability can quickly translate into rising inflation, strained household budgets and challenges to local economies.

“Instability in the region has consequences, even if instability is, in fact, far from Egypt,” Awad affirmed.

Political Repercussions

“No one currently knows how the war will progress or end,” Awad said, laying out three scenarios for the lasting impact of the conflict:

1. The fragmentation of Iran: “A fragmented Iran could have dire repercussions. Dealing with several small political units is difficult because they have different interests, and this could have very destabilizing effects on the region.”
2. Israel rising as a regional superpower: “Israel wants to end Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities as well as weaken non-state actors that are close in the region. But this could all come under a broader objective of being the superpower in the region, which could also have a destabilizing effect because Middle East countries will not accept that.”
3. The Iranian government stays intact and acquires a nuclear weapon: “One possibility is that the current Iranian regime remains in power but decides to acquire a nuclear weapon, despite having repeatedly stated that it has not done so. Of course, the bombardment and war will certainly weaken Iran in the region if it stays in power.”

Awad argued that if the war ends with Iran intact and a regime change that accommodates U.S. interests, the situation can still be volatile because “it isn’t only the United States that has objectives to realize out of this war. Israel has its own objectives that might not be in step with the United States.” 

Conflict Resolution

Awad emphasized the importance of a joint solution to end the conflict and not a unilateral declaration of victory. For example, if President Donald Trump did declare victory, the Iranian government may not accept an end to the conflict without a guaranteed change to the pre-war status quo, Awad noted.

“They do not want to go back to the status quo when they were suffering from sanctions for decades and decades,” he said.

Awad expressed skepticism about the ability of the United Nations Security Council to pass a vote to end the war due to the structural veto power of member states. “International organizations are paralyzed by their most important members,” Awad said, citing the United States issuing six vetoes of UN Security Council resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza as an example of this limitation. “The UN General Assembly is just a way for member states to apply pressure by expressing the will of the international community.”

The U.S. and Israel-Iran war has raised criticisms of violations of international law. The United Nations called for an investigation into the February 28 U.S. strike on an Iranian school in Minab, which killed at least 165 schoolgirls. “This provoked a response from Iran, which couldn’t reach the United States, so it launched missiles toward its neighbors in the Gulf,” said Awad. 

“All of these actions contradict international law, but unfortunately, international organizations cannot take effective action because of the flaw in how such organizations were conceived,” he added. “They gave decision-making power to the most powerful countries, who will not act against themselves.”

Awad believes the war could end through intervention or collective action by a coalition of regional powers from around the world. 

“Europe would not like to have another flow of refugees, so you can imagine that a coalition of countries may cautiously intervene,” he said. 

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.”