The ‘Women Drivers’ product allows women riders to book rides exclusively with women drivers via the Uber app, expanding economic opportunities for Saudi women while enhancing rider choice. Here’s how the product works:

On-demand – The Women Drivers product allows women riders to be matched with Women Drivers. The product functions just like UberX and is selectable from the product mini-list with similar prices as Uber X.

Reserve – For women riders looking for added structure and planning, they can reserve a ride with a women driver up to 30 minutes in advance through the Uber Reserve feature.

Empowering Saudi women through Al Nahda partnership and GigSister events

Uber is proud to announce its partnership with Alnahda Society, a leading non-profit organization established in 1962 with a mission to empower women both economically and socially. This collaboration aims to support women in mobility through capacity-building initiatives, including financial literacy programs, by equipping women with essential skills.

Additionally, Uber will host its first GigSister program in Saudi Arabia, creating a dedicated space for women drivers to connect, share experiences, and foster a supportive local community. These initiatives highlight how Uber is going beyond mobility to actively invest in the development and success of women across the Kingdom.

Over the years, Uber has introduced a series of programs in Saudi Arabia, from the Wusool initiative, which has supported over 20 million subsidized rides for women, to Women Rider Preference, which allows women drivers to choose if they want to exclusively pick-up women riders.

You know what’s wild? We’re living in 2025, sending people into space for fun, and yet half the population still whispers about periods like they’re some kind of state secret.

In the GCC, this issue is exacerbated by social stigma attached to many aspects of women’s health, from periods to perimenopause. These stigmas prevent women from seeing doctors for potentially serious health issues, right up until the point where symptoms become impossible to ignore.

The result? Pretty terrible health outcomes. For example, 80% of breast cancers in MENA are diagnosed at Stage 4 (27% five-year survival rate) versus in the UK, where 80% are diagnosed at Stages 1 and 2 (99% five-year survival rate).

Trying to change culture doesn’t work, and even if it did, we wouldn’t want to do it. The cultural richness of the GCC is arguably one of its greatest assets. Instead, at NABTA, we try to address taboos by creating safe spaces where conversations can happen naturally, and by meeting women where they are, both literally and figuratively.

Hybrid platforms like NABTA’s allow for privacy that traditional healthcare settings can’t always provide. When a woman can access information about PCOS or menopause from her own home and consult a doctor, without explaining to anyone why she needs the appointment, you make it possible for her to be seen without judgement. Add cultural intelligence to the mix, et voila! You’re away.

A mission-led startup in the Middle East can be a hit or a miss, can you tell us more how you braved this specific topic and how you went about doing it on the ground?

I’m not sure I really had a choice in the matter. If you’re mission-led as an individual, wired for or against a particular thing (in my case, injustice), you’re going to naturally be drawn to building companies that are also mission-led. And there’s going to be one mission that drives you more than others.

I founded four companies in three years before NABTA, all of them mission-led – a doctor-finding, appointment-booking platform in Pakistan; a plastic recycling company in Sierra Leone. But although the impact of these companies was a key driver for me, they weren’t “the” company I wanted to build, “the” problem I wanted to solve.

I remember in 2014, shortly after I started my first company, I pitched it to an investor back in the UK. He stopped me halfway through the pitch and said, “Sophie, don’t take this the wrong way… I’m sure you’re going to be very successful at whatever you do in life, but this is not it.”

I was taken aback. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“You don’t want it enough,” he said.

“What do you mean I don’t want it enough?” I asked, confused.

He looked at me gently, kindly, and said, “When you find what you’re meant to be doing – when you want “it” enough – you’ll know.”

For years, this niggled at me. What did “want it enough” mean? I knew I wanted a family, and to spend time with my kids. Did that mean I would never want any company “enough”? Was I never going to be dedicated enough, focused enough, “enough” as Sophie, to make it a success?

And then, about six months into founding NABTA, the investor’s words came back to me, one day as I was driving home from the mall in the middle of the night.

Wanting to solve a problem “enough” isn’t about excluding all other sources of joy from your life. It isn’t about choosing not to start a family or choosing to spend time away from your kids. You can build a family and a business in parallel, and you can do it your way, and lots of people do.

Wanting it “enough” means, in those quiet moments where you could be doing anything or thinking about anything, it’s the problem you’re trying to solve that comes to mind. In the shower, in the car, when you’re doing the grocery run – your company and your customers, and the impact you’re chasing, are the things you think about.

That’s how I knew NABTA was the company for me. That’s how I knew I wanted it “enough”. And the fact that we’re building it here in the Middle East, where women have historically been among the most underserved in terms of their healthcare – that’s always been fuel, not a deterrent.

Why does investing in women’s health make business and financial sense, specifically in the case of Nabta Health?

For us, the business case for investing in women’s health has always been obvious – women’s health is a US$1.3 trillion market globally, largely untapped, with fewer than 1% of companies looking at the 645 million underserved women in the Middle East and Africa.

But here’s where it gets really interesting from a business perspective. Despite most companies providing access to healthcare in some form to their female employees, women are not getting the care they need. It takes four times longer on average to diagnose women with the same chronic conditions as men, even though they’re twice as likely to claim on insurance.

Companies are paying 90-200% of an employee’s annual salary when they lose senior female talent. For executives, that can exceed 213% when you factor in recruitment, training, and lost productivity. Meanwhile, our hybrid healthcare model delivers a 30.1% reduction in hospital admissions and 23% cost savings on medical expenses.

So, imagine you’re a CEO looking at your bottom line. You can either keep paying hundreds of thousands in replacement costs every time a talented woman leaves due to health disruptions, OR you can invest in preventive, comprehensive women’s healthcare that keeps your talent pipeline intact while actually reducing your overall healthcare spend.

From NABTA’s perspective, proper, woman-centric care creates incredible customer lifetime value. When companies see measurable ROI, reduced attrition, increased productivity, better ESG metrics, they don’t just renew their contracts, they expand them.

For companies like NABTA, who work with payors directly to reduce the cost of healthcare and improve its effectiveness, the business case is not just “better healthcare”, it’s “better business”.

Decentralized diagnosis is a way to liberate women from the social problems arising from taboo to social no-no; how is it that the democratization of care can benefit everyone?

Our ultimate objective at NABTA is health sovereignty for women. What does that mean? It means empowering women to become the primary architects of their own care, and the ultimate sources of knowledge about their own bodies. It means giving every woman – regardless of where she’s from, or what she looks like, or how much money she earns – the knowledge, tools and access to get the care she needs, when she needs it.

This is where technology becomes genuinely revolutionary. When you have the ability to shift knowledge and tools away from healthcare providers and put them in the hands of women – when you decentralise and democratise access to care – you enable women and remove gatekeepers.

Think about it: a 22-year-old dealing with irregular periods doesn’t have to explain to her family why she needs a gynecologist appointment. A 35-year-old exploring fertility options can access information and initial consultations without office gossip. A 48-year-old experiencing perimenopause symptoms can get proper diagnosis without being dismissed as “just stressed.”

NABTA’s 24/7 digital platform means a woman in Abu Dhabi or Jeddah or Cairo has the ability to access the same quality of care as someone in Dubai. Evening clinic hours accommodate everyone’s schedule, not just the traditional 9-to-5. Multilingual support (we offer 5 languages) means language isn’t a barrier to healthcare.

And then there’s the beautiful ripple effect: when women have better health outcomes, entire families benefit. Women are key household decision-makers, responsible for 80% of caregiving and 80% of consumption decision-making globally. When you empower women, you uplift society. Children have healthier mothers. Partners have fewer caregiving obligations. Companies have more productive employees. Healthcare systems have better preventive care ratios.

A rising tide lifts all boats. When you democratise care for the historically underserved 50% of the population, you improve health outcomes for everyone.

Nabta Health sits on the intersection of AI, ethics and equity, how can this triangle be balanced and these supposedly disparate sectors aligned?

Our approach to women’s health puts equity at the center of care. The very nature of decentralised, personalised healthcare means building care to cater for the health and wellbeing of each individual, regardless of their age, stage, income status or country of origin.

When we develop our AI tools, our training data deliberately includes diverse populations: different ages, ethnicities, and health profiles. Because if our AI learns that “normal” looks like a 25-year-old white woman, we’re reinforcing systemic biases not eliminating them.

In terms of the balance between artificial and human inputs, we’ve designed our platform to exist around an “augmented intelligence” – combining patient, clinician and artificial intelligence to deliver the best health outcomes for women. In our world, AI augments human care, it doesn’t replace it. Our care teams use AI-powered insights to provide better recommendations, but the relationship between patient and provider remains fundamentally human. Women aren’t interacting with chatbots about their reproductive health, they’re getting AI-enhanced care from real healthcare professionals who live in the same places and understand the same cultural nuances as they do.

In terms of access, this is where the equity piece gets really exciting. AI allows us to scale personalised care in ways that were impossible before. Instead of one-size-fits-all treatment protocols provided in a one-to-one relationship by a specialist, our augmented intelligence means we can provide individualised care plans that take inputs from multiple specialties and account for each individual’s reality, including genetic factors, lifestyle realities, cultural considerations, and personal preferences.

And then we ask questions, and we validate continuously. We know we’re succeeding if we can demonstrate that we’re eliminating health inequities and improving the health sovereignty of women in quantifiable ways. Are women from different socioeconomic backgrounds getting equal access to preventive care options such as annual health checks? Do they do them? When they do them, do they understand and act on the results?

At NABTA, the AI-ethics-equity triangle stays balanced because each point reinforces the others. Ethical AI builds trust, which improves equity. Equitable access provides diverse data, which improves AI. And better AI enables more ethical, equitable care delivery. For us, achieving an equilibrium is not about balancing competing priorities, it’s about creating synergy between them.

Just 31% of GCC marcomms professionals say their organisations or divisions have equal or near-equal male-female representation in leadership, defined as 40-60% in favour of any gender. The vast majority (54%) have indicated low representation, with almost a third citing very low representation in which women account for fewer than 25% of the leadership team. Only 30% said a woman held the most senior role in their marcomms organisation or division, with a title of CEO, CMO, MD, founder.

The data, from a Think Equal survey to both men and women in the region’s marcomms industry, shows a clear opportunity to strengthen diversity at the top. Links between diverse leadership teams and improved performance and profitability have been well-established through several studies in recent years.

On the upside, 70% of respondents say they are optimistic about future progress in gender equality in leadership roles within the GCC marcomms sector. The majority (53%) say that based on their experiences, encounters and conversations, they believed that progress has been made over the past two years. Almost a third (30%) say the right building blocks are in place, however 17% feel no meaningful progress has been achieved, signalling the need for more consistent, sector-wide efforts to create impactful and sustained change.

Results from the survey were shared at a mixed-gender event by The Marketing Society and Weber Shandwick, an Official Partner of Think Equal, the initiative which aims to accelerate gender equality in leadership across the marcomms industry in the GCC. ‘The Art & Science of Ethical Persuasion’ was held at MCN Hive in Dubai, with data presented by Alasdair Hall-Jones, Global Director of The Marketing Society and Katie Plant, Director at Weber Shandwick MENAT. The event also featured a science-based workshop by Leopold Ajami, a certified trainer on ethical persuasion.

The power to ethically persuade and influence in work and life is an invaluable skill, and it can also help create better results for women in leadership. As part of an engaging discussion segment, attendees considered how principles of ethical persuasion could address some of the obstacles slowing down gender equality in leadership. The survey found top barriers to be cultural norms and biases when hiring and promoting, while the top three key areas for improvement were recommended as addressing unconscious bias, championing more female role models in leadership, and increasing flexible working arrangements.

Specific ideas and discussion points from the event will also be considered for next stage development by the Think Equal Working Committee, a group of industry professionals from both brands and agencies. For more information, please visit here. 

According to Prachi Satoskar, Commercial Director, at GfK an NIQ Company, “Brands, and leaders must understand that sustainability does not always equate to premium. With a trusted, forward-thinking partner by your side, strategizing under extraordinary market and ecological pressures is more than possible. Brands must tap into unrivaled data science and business intelligence expertise, and AI-backed technology to find out how your business can achieve its sustainability impact targets and drive growth.”

Key highlights of the study: 

• Women Consumers in KSA are ‘traditional’ yet aspiring to ‘play’ an active role in society.

• 47% of Saudi consumers agree that experiences are more important than possessions, as they aspire to explore and indulge in the world outside the home. 

• 68% of Saudi consumers are watchful’ about companies’ green motivations as Sustainability plays an increased role in purchase decisions. 

•  Saudi Women are in anchor roles hence brands need to embrace inclusivity & integrate women’s stories into their brand campaigns and strategies

•  By partnering with leisure & entertainment players, there is a huge potential in the ‘experience’ space – an opportunity to re-vamp loyalty & rewards programs 

•  Saudi consumers prioritize sustainability hence measures coupled with economic consideration are key to driving consumer adoption

The full report can be viewed here.

The UM MENAT team organized the initiative focusing on empowering SMEs and supporting female entrepreneurs in the spirit of creating meaningful change and driving economic growth. UM partnered with Female Fusion, UAE’s professional network group for women looking to build, grow and scale their businesses and connect with female-owned companies who require marketing support.

“Female start-ups in MENA receive a mere 1.2% of all VC funding. We are very grateful to be able to support a network like Female Fusion to truly give value and impact others on Impact,” commented Maria Poulton, MD at UM UAE. “Female empowerment is close to my heart and at UM we are very passionate about sharing our knowledge with those who may not be able to access the expertise of a large media and advertising organization. We continuously investigate ways we can be more of a support function for the local community of business owners, especially women, and elevate them to their full potential.” 

Over 90 UMers split into teams and took up a challenge: to develop seven marketing strategies for seven businesses in just 90 minutes. The team demonstrated their excellence across various industries by offering new thinking and marketing approaches to companies including a swim school, dental practice, production house, events company, natural honey retailer, and an interior design brand. Each team presented their strategies to a jury and the best work was awarded recognition for going over and beyond the requirements of a detailed marketing framework. The teams then gave their strategies and marketing plans to the seven entrepreneurs to take on board and execute at will. These strategies will serve as valuable roadmaps, guiding entrepreneurs toward success and growth in their respective industries.

UM MENAT extends its appreciation to the Female Fusion Network for its collaboration and TikTok for sharing insights with female entrepreneurs on leveraging the digital platform for their businesses.

Andrea Suarez, Global CEO of UM, commented on the global efforts of the agency, “From picking up litter on beaches and parks in the US to providing essentials for those with disabilities in South Korea and feeding unhoused people in Greece, our community’s micro-actions will drive macro results that build a better tomorrow, today.” 

Undeniably, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) objectives, in which female participation in the workplace plays a key role, are front and center in government agendas for the UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular. And we couldn't be prouder to feature amazing Saudi women in this issue.

Yet, all of our participants agree: progress may be happening daily but there's still work to be done on many levels. And all of them – whether in their 20s or almost in their 50s; whether they're in agencies, in social media, or independent; and whether they're in client-facing roles or operating internally – strive to improve working conditions for the next generation of women in our industry. They're paving the way by being strong, successful, hard-working, and confident. Men or women, we can all learn from them and their experiences.

So, read on online here or grab a hard copy at a store near you.

In the first edition, Meta launched #SheCreates as an exclusive community for women from the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey to commemorate their achievements as they overcame unforeseen challenges over the past couple of years of the pandemic. This year, building on this program's foundations, the new e-book goes a step further to inspire all women who value entrepreneurship and leadership to build businesses, communities, and careers.

Some of the names in this year’s edition include Lama Jammal, owner of Mamalu Kitchen (UAE), Sarah Seklani, owner of Laila’s Candy Cart (UAE), Mina Al-Oraibi, Iraqi-British journalist, Editor in Chief of The National (Iraq); Caroline Faraj, VP of CNN and Head of Arabic services; Jomana Al-Rashed, CEO of Saudi Research and Media Group; Dalia Dogmoush Soubra, Syrian-German food author and entrepreneur (Syria); Rania Hammad, British-Egyptian fashion designer (Egypt); Manal Rostom, Egyptian marathoner and mountaineer (Egypt); Farah Nabulsi, Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA Award-winning Palestinian/British filmmaker (Palestine); Nadine Samra, Chief Business Officer for Weyyak (Jordan); Mona Abou Hana, PwC's Chief People Officer for EMEA and the Middle East (Lebanon), among others.

Throughout the e-book, which is available in English, women leaders have shared their career learnings, challenges, and valuable advice to those wishing to follow in their footsteps. Through #SheCreates 2.0, Meta showcases the power of meaningful connections made on its platforms as women joined forces across Meta’s family of apps to support and uplift one another.

Derya Matras, Vice President, Africa, Middle East &Turkey at Meta, said in a statement, “Today’s women and those who identify as women experience a myriad of unparalleled challenges – the glass ceiling, the unconscious bias, and the unrelenting expectation to care for others. I am incredibly proud to launch the book’s second edition, shining a much-needed spotlight on the incredible women from the MENA region who are making a real difference, creating change, breaking down barriers, and redefining what’s possible across all professions, sectors, and industries in the region.”

The book has been designed by Nourane Owais, an illustrator, photographer, interior stylist, and founder of Regiggers creative agency & Courtyard 66 studios in Cairo, Egypt. With over 200,000 followers on social media, Nourane shares her creative content and continues to grow her online community by sharing her journey as a self-taught artist and business owner.

The second edition of the #SheCreates ebook is available for download. Click here to get your copy.

YouTube announced the relaunch of YouTube Batala, a MENA channel dedicated to helping the millions of people who watch YouTube every day discover the next generation of Arabic-speaking women creators. YouTube Batala is part of a larger effort towards supporting women creators across Arabic-speaking countries.

Today, YouTube Batala is an index of more than 250 women-led channels from Algeria to Yemen. It’s part of a wider program by YouTube which also includes a series of events and workshops aiming to help women-led channels elevate their content in terms of production and storytelling.

“One of the things I am in awe of in my role is the immense power and diversity of the women creator community on YouTube in the Middle East and North Africa. Not only are these women creating content that draws in millions of people, [but] they’re also building communities around ideas, beauty, food, and even general wellbeing. YouTube Batala is part of our ongoing work which we started to help more people discover these emerging storytellers while also celebrating their diversity, authenticity, and impact on YouTube. After all, these women really are the heroes of their own stories,” said Tarek Amin, Director of YouTube in the Middle East and North Africa, in a statement. 

YouTube Batala works more as a hub rather than a traditional channel. On Batala, viewers will find a collection of playlists organized by genres with each playlist containing a variety of creators. The playlists cover gaming, education, beauty and fashion, wellness, music, and one of the most important genres in terms of growth among women viewership and content creation: gaming. The creators were chosen based on a set of criteria which includes responsible and impactful content creation, consistency, and whether their content was made in Arabic.

Women-led content on YouTube in Arabic-speaking countries has witnessed a major shift in recent years. In 2016, the number of women-led creators with more than one million subscribers stood at five; that’s also when YouTube first launched the Batala project parallel to other creator-focused events and initiatives designed to support women creators on the platform. Today, there are more than 150 women-led channels with more than one million subscribers in the Middle East and North Africa.

Batala features creators from across the spectrum of interests. Meshael from Saudi Arabia and Kafa from Tunisia are two people leading a thriving community of women gamers on YouTube. Manola, also from Saudi Arabia is taking lifestyle content to the next level by not just reviewing clothes or posing in them but by also making them. While Nedal from Egypt has managed to bring a community of book lovers together to discuss books and even started a virtual book club through her YouTube Channel. 
 

Agora images are a free-to-use app social app. The app is for the global photography community, with more than 3.5 million users from across 193 countries. On a weekly basis the app’s users – amateurs and professional photographers – can participate in a photography competition through it.

We spoke to Francesca Gori, Regional Director of Legal Services at Accenture for Compliance, Operations, Regulatory and Employment law, during the Diversity Council conference held earlier this month in Dubai. She discussed her findings of women working in fields wherein an inherent bias in gender exist.

Francesca spoke about the difficulties behind the concept of “women in leadership roles.” According to a report by Pew Research, only 26 women are in CEO roles at Fortune 500 companies, making up 5.2 percent of the female population.

“A lot of things have changed in the last few years, at least in terms of the number of women employees. In Accenture, for example, if you look at some of the numbers, we are 200,000 employees and women, which is about 43 percent of our workforce, if we see back in 2011, we were 35 percent,” Francesca added. 

She explained the importance of schemes to encourage women to join the workforce, especially steering them towards ‘male dominated fields’ such as law, science and technology. 

There are various initiatives that encourage women to join the science and tech fields such as ‘Progressive Women’s Leadership’, ‘Girls who Code’, ‘Harvard’s Women in Computer Science Advocacy Council’ and ‘Women in Big Data,’ among others. The multitude of these initiatives are doing a lot to help women; however, it is still perceived as insufficient as more can be done. There are more and more opportunities being made and women need to grasp them.

A case study conducted by Better Buys on the topic of women in data found that only 26 percent of data professionals are women, of which only 18 percent are in business management roles and 13 percent are developers. It also mentions that women’s involvement in information technology has increased from 1.7 percent in 1980 to 7.8 percent in 2010. 

A report on women in coding over the years by National Science Foundation, American Bar Association, American Association of Medical Colleges shows that since 1985, there has been a steep and steady decline in women in computer science fields. One of the major reasons women are rejecting science and tech fields is the environment. 

Being dominated by males for many decades, science and tech aren’t very welcoming of women who join the workforce. Francesca said that many companies do not embrace the importance of environment and its effects on the female workforce. “They need to help women stand up and speak out and continue to grow,” she added.

Francesca also heavily emphasizes on the fact that women need to support other women, it is the give-and-take gesture that helps all women grow and it is of high importance, now more than ever. An example is the ‘Rising Star’ program in Chicago, USA.  It includes bringing together 25 women leaders, senior managers and conducting workshops with industry professionals, sharing experiences and opinions, encouraging the creation of great bonds amongst the women.