Sheha Akbari graduates from Waterloo with a management engineering degree, an Apple patent in the works, experience as a refugee interpreter and translator, and a passion for helping improve the lives of disadvantaged women and youth living in Afghanistan.
Growing up hearing about the financial, emotional and other struggles her parents, especially her mother, had while in Afghanistan, Akbari has committed herself to supporting Afghan citizens, particularly women and youth.
While on a co-op term working in the country where most of her extended family still lives, Akbari employed women to make jewelry and embroidery and patchwork pieces for a social enterprise she launched called The Kabul Express.
After returning to Canada, Akbari refined the vision for the Kabul Express and relaunched it as Silky Road, a venture for which she received a Norman Esch Enterprise Co-op Award in 2020.
In 2019, she co-founded the Sola Foundation, an organization focused on empowering Afghan youth.
“Its goal is to create sustainable peace, prosperity and abundance in Afghanistan by activating Afghan’s young people to lead social enterprises there,” says Akbari, the foundation’s director of innovation.
Read Graduating with a degree, a patent and a purpose for the full story.