Sara Wahedi is the CEO of Ehtesab, an app that sends near real-time security, traffic, electricity and other alerts to users in Afghanistan.

The app is managed by a team of Afghan developers and staffers who crowdsource and verify the reports before sending alerts. Ehtesab, financed by an Afghan tech company up until March 2020, is now a nonprofit that relies on crowdfunding.

Born in Kabul, Wahedi and her family settled in 2005 in Canada, where she studied at the University of British Columbia and Douglas College. She returned to Kabul in 2017 and stayed until the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

Wahedi moved to New York last year to study human rights with a concentration in urban studies and data science at Columbia University. She expects to graduate in December 2023.

Upon graduation, she is interested in pursuing a masters in architectural studies at MIT. and is also considering going to law school.

Wahedi is continuously threatened with detainment by the Taliban on Twitter if she returns to her home country and doesn’t stop speaking out against them.

Human Rights, Women, Social Justice, Urban Design, Social Policy, Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan, Crowdfunding, Non-Profit, Technology, Innovation, Geopolitics Entrepreneurship, Community Improvement,