I am Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) and the Middle East and North Africa Observatory on Responsible Artificial Intelligence at the American University in Cairo’s Onsi Sawiris School of Business.
My area of work is the economics of knowledge, technology and development, with focus on Artificial Intelligence and inclusion; the future of work, and the platform economy; gender and innovation in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). My authored works include “Artificial Intelligence and Inequality in the Middle East” in the Oxford Handbook of Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (2020) and the “Sate of Open Data in the Middle East and North Africa” in The State of Open Data, Histories and Horizons (2019). I am a returning a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Affiliate Faculty at Harvard Law School’s CopyrightX course and an Affiliated Fellow of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. I am a member of the ITU Academic Advisory Body on Emerging Technologies and the Advisory Committee of the Global Innovation Index. I am also an Associate Member at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society and member of Global Academic Network of the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP).
I lead the MENA Hub for the Inclusive AI Research Network (IAIRN), the North Africa hub of the Open African Innovation Research Partnership (Open AIR) and the MENA Data Collection Chapter of the Global Index on Responsible Artificial Intelligence 2026. I founded the Open Data for Development Node for the Middle East and North Africa, led the MENA Hub for Feminist AI Research (f<A+I>r) network and was head of Egypt’s team within the Fairwork action research initiative, led by the Oxford Internet Institute. I have a record of membership in several other international committees and organizations. Examples include the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils, , the Paris Peace Forum Digital Rights in Society Working Group on Algorithmic Governance, the Scientific Advisory Committee of Feminist AI Research network, the Open for Good Alliance, Inclusive AI commons. and the Data Governance Working Group of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI). I also has a record of policy impact in Egypt in the area of open source technologies, regulation of ride sharing and advocacy for the right to information. I served as member of the Technical Secretariat of Egypt’s National Council for Artificial Intelligence and was a major contributor to Egypt’s first AI Strategy 2019. I also served as the Knowledge Economy Expert for Egypt’s Vision 2030 Development Strategy. I taught at Columbia University, Yale Law School and the University of Toronto, and served a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. At AUC, I served as the Chair of the Department of Economics and the Onsi Sawiris School of Business Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research.
