Emi Mahmoud

Poet, Activist, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador

Speaker Profile

World Champion Poet and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Emtithal (Emi) Mahmoud advocates for refugees and disadvantaged communities the world over. In 2018, Emi walked 1000km for peace (Darfur to Khartoum) mobilizing thousands. Emi served as an independent advisor to the 2020 Juba Peace Talks creating unprecedented recommendations on civil liberties, gender equality, health equity, and more. Named one of BBC's 100 Most Inspirational Women, the TED speaker and author co-founded an international Sickle Cell research initiative at age 19. She has since worked with President Obama, the Dalai Lama, Forbes 30 Under 30, Google Zeitgeist, and more. The award-winning poet and author has repeatedly moved audiences to tears—and to their feet— at the UN General Assembly, The World Economic Forum in Davos, , the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting, and countless other high-level events. Emi dedicates her time to fostering and facilitating the inclusion of marginalized voices in the private sector, health sector, public sector and media one collaboration at a time. Recently, as Senior Growth Manager at Speetar— a culture and language-matched digital healthcare solution serving post-conflict areas— Emi has led several initiatives to promote health equity including as an MIT Solve team lead, Johnson & Johnson Ventures Health Access Prize Awardee team lead, and CUNY School of Public Health and Firefly Innovations Health Innovations Accelerator team lead; she is passionate about delivering quality healthcare access to all. An Annenberg Scholar and Yale Global Health Scholar, Emi studied Anthropology and Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology, graduating from Yale in 2016.