RIYADH: Hayat Sindi is a leading biotechnologist and a champion of science and technology in the Middle East. She is the first woman from the Gulf to earn a Ph.D. in biotechnology, studying at King’s College London, the University of Cambridge, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
Recognized for her work to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and social innovation for scientists, technologists and engineers in the Middle East and beyond, Sindi was appointed a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO in October 2012.
As founder and CEO of the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity (i2institute) launched in 2011, Sindi aims to give every scientist, technologist and engineer the opportunity to fulfill their potential through the promotion of science education and innovation to young people.
Driven by her desire to more closely link science and social impact, she co-founded Diagnostics for All, a non-profit initiative which creates innovative, inexpensive diagnostic devices for the developing world. These devices require no power, water or trained doctors and have the ability to provide potentially life-saving medical results in minutes.
Her dream is that i2 will make stories like hers less exceptional and more possible for every young innovator.
Sindi was selected as one of Newsweek’s 150 Women Who Shake the World, was ranked second by Forbes on a list of the most powerful Arab women in Saudi Arabia and was again selected by Newsweek, and The Daily Beast, as one of 150 fearless women. In 2018, she was named by the BBC among the 100 most inspiring and influential women in the world.
In 2015, she was appointed as an honorary adviser to the UN Environment Program for the Eye on Earth Summit and the following year joined a 10-member group supporting the technological facilitation mechanism for sustainable development goals.