Walid founded a ground-breaking news aggregation service in his home country of Yemen, which spurred him onto work with tracking Internet censorship and enabling activists and journalists to bypass government-imposed firewalls to access news and social media websites. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society (ISOC) and co-founder of the Society’s Blockchain Special Interest Group. His work in tech development for increasing Internet Access has earned him international recognition, including a TED senior fellowship, and Örebro University's Democracy Award, and he has been featured by global media such as CNN, the Guardian, and the Huffington Post.

Esra'a is passionate about music as a means for social change, and is also the founder of MideastTunes, where musicians across the world with Middle Eastern and North African origin can share their music that is often censored on mainstream music platforms. She also a senior TEDFellow, and Echoing Green fellow. As an outspoken defender of free speech, Esra'a was FastCompany magazine’s "100 Most Creative People in Business and The Daily Beast one of the 17 bravest bloggers worldwide. 
 

The music you hear with Esra’s is by Tam Tam, the Saudi born pop star who sings about love, solidarity and equity.

#tracesofnorth #thenordics #nordicbynaturepodcast #ordicbynature #democracy #freedomofspeech #netneutrality #WalidAlSaqaf #Esra’aAlShafei #majal.org #alqasar #digitalfreedom #mideasttunes #tedfellow #echoinggreenfellow #thedailybeast #theguardian #thehuffingtonpost #forbes #ISOC #imaginarylife