Sara Wahedi

Sara Wahedi (@SaraWahedi) is the CEO and Founder of Ehtesab, Afghanistan’s first civic technology startup. Ehtesab  has been providing real-time security and city service alerts through the ‘Ehtesab App’ (@EhtesabApp)  to Kabul residents since June 2020, and plans expansion to three other major cities across the country. She is widely recognized for innovation and human rights advocacy.

Sara was named one of TIME Magazine’s ‘Next Generation Leaders,’ and one of BBC’s ‘100 Women of 2022.’  She is a 2022 semi-finalist for MIT Technology Review’s ‘Innovators under 35’ list, for her work democratizing access to information for Afghans.

Sara previously worked at the Office of the President of Afghanistan, responsible for supporting social development policy and projects across the country. She is  completing her studies in Data Science and Human Rights at Columbia University. Areas of expertise: human-centred design, civic technology, disinformation and misinformation.