- Rudayna Abdo, Founder and CEO of Thaki, has been named a Schwab Social Innovator of the Year 2024.
- The 2024 Schwab Foundation Social Innovation Awards recognize 16 organizations joining a global community of 477 change leaders directly improving the lives of 891 million people.
- Rudayna Abdo is one of only two fellows from the Middle East and North Africa awarded in 2024.
- Thaki works in partnership with businesses to bring digital learning to vulnerable children in the Middle East.
- Thaki has supported over 30,000 learners in the past nine years and expects exponential growth.
- For more information, visit https://thaki.org.
Beirut, Lebanon / Amsterdam, Netherlands, 16 January 2024 – After nine years dedicated to educating the Middle East’s most vulnerable children, Thaki’s founder and CEO Rudayna Abdo, has been recognised by the Schwab Foundation as a Social Innovator of the Year 2024.
This prestigious global award recognises Mrs Abdo as a leader in digital education for marginalized children.
Since 2015, Ms Abdo has created and led Thaki, a social impact non-profit organization that delivers learning tools to schools catering to refugee and vulnerable children in the Middle East. Thaki is a non-political, non-sectarian organization.
By taking used computer hardware and edtech software, Thaki has delivered hope and educational opportunities to 30,000 children. Thaki works in partnership with companies that donate their second-hand electronic devices and education software. Children access the software on donated devices, through Thaki’s own offline app that works in English and Arabic. With TNO, Thaki also co-created Nour’s World, a new, innovative and scalable ed-tech app that builds children’s resilience and helps them deal with difficult emotions.
The award announcement was made today in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, among the world’s foremost leaders.
Speaking from Davos, Ms Abdo said: “As a Palestinian and the daughter of refugees myself, the injustices of the violence of war run deep for me. Thaki has reached over 30,000 children and we are now looking at ways to support the children of Gaza. None of this would be possible without my amazing team and the dozens of volunteers who joined this journey since Day 1. And my deepest gratitude to the Schwab Foundation for recognizing our work with this award.”
Ms Abdo is the daughter of refugees and herself experienced displacement due to conflict. She has previously had a successful career in urban planning, tackling housing, land-use and urban transportation issues in North America and the Middle East.
About the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
In partnership with the World Economic Forum, the Schwab Foundation is a leading global platform that convenes a pioneering community of nearly 500 change-makers and seeks to advance the field of social innovation towards more systemic change. In partnership with the World Economic Forum, the Schwab Foundation is the foremost global community of pioneering social innovators driving systemic change.
About the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024
The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024 convenes the world’s foremost leaders under the theme “Rebuilding Trust.”