Iraq Business Heritage Inventions & Innovations Lifestyle Science & Technology The Arts TV, Film & Online Video Women-Led Enterprises 192 Smiles Photo Credit: Rizwana Hussain by Jennifer MacKenzie 4 months ago Designer , community mobilizer , producer , and co-founder of a crowdsourced public safety technology : with her myriad projects and talents, the one thing Layla Shaikley definitely doesn’t have is a one-track mind. Here she reflects on the common denominator: the desire to afford the marginalized a voice , and the collective means to create positive change. What inspires your passion for “changing the narrative” and creating multiple frameworks for self-representation?
As a Muslim in the West , a woman in STEM , and an Iraqi in America , I’ve lived in a world often defined in binaries. Without constructive defiance, the conflicting binaries would limit me. I constructively aim to defy barriers that limit creativity.
That’s why I founded crowdSOS : a data technology company to map insecurities in Iraq and afford Iraqis the chance to have their stories become useful data. Likewise, as a Muslim, my choice to wear hijab often adds a pre-constructed narrative to my identity. I grew sick of telling “my story” as a defensive correction of popularly perpetuated myths, so I co-produced a video cut to Jay Z’s “Somewhere in America” t hat featured fashionable Muslim women in a group some friends and I founded, which we tongue-in-cheekily call #mipsterz (Muslim Hipsters).
The video commenced an unprecedented dialogue across social and mainstream media about who gets to represent Islam , why, and how. Having just avoided death in Baghdad and then Boston, how do you hope crowd-sourced and online technology can improve public safety? At a micro level, the insecurities in Iraq limit mobility; at a macro level, they hinder development.
But while turmoil prevents social infrastructure from developing, through online resources, self-governance can begin to fill institutional gaps , and technology for social justice and impact can serve as a democratic way to provide self-constructed solutions to large societal problems. What is your biggest dream for the future? I am in a constant state of dreaming , making it nearly impossible to define my dreams.
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