Soraya Fouladi
Delegate Speaker for the Gender Equality Plenary Challenge
Soraya Fouladi is the Founder & CEO of Jara, ensuring the 800 Million children in high-poverty and low-connectivity communities globally can get access to a quality education, anywhere, anytime, through the Jara Unit. Soraya is a Cisco Global Problem Solver, Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus Fellow, United Nations Keynote Speaker, SOCAP Fellow, Skoll Delegate, Gratitude Network Fellow, and One Young World/Deloitte SDG4 Scholar Awardee. Soraya came up with the idea for Jara as a teenager at the United Nations International School, went to university to study Electrical Engineering to learn how to build what is now the Jara Unit, became a teacher, then a business management consultant helping spin out 72 businesses/products/services from deep tech, and has been building Jara for the past 6 years with an inspiring global team. Jara www.joinjara.com is an award-winning initiative ensuring all children, especially those in off-grid communities, can get a quality education anywhere, anytime. Jara closes the digital divide by building the e-learning solution, the Jara Unit, for children in low-electricity and low-internet communities globally. The Jara Unit, a learning tool for children and teaching tool for teachers, is a heavily research-backed solution Jara has co-created alongside under-served communities for years. It is a crank-powered and solar-powered off-grid charging education device that enables children to get access to e-learning and distance learning, anywhere, anytime. Together with LG, Intel, and Cisco, they are on a mission to ensure the 800 Million children who had no access to education during the pandemic, especially girls, in under-resourced communities, refugee camps, and post-disaster zones can get equitable and continuous access to the education they need to break their cycles of poverty and make their dreams come true.