About Sabrina

Sabrina Hersi Issa is an award-winning human rights technologist focused on global advocacy and media innovation. She leads projects leveraging technology and media to improve access to direct services and press freedom. She writes regularly about technology, culture and social issues and is a nonstop champion for women in technology.

Sabrina Hersi Issa cares about living her values and keeping Black and brown people alive, well and thriving. She is an angel investor and human rights technologist committed to leveraging innovation as a tool to unlock opportunity and dignity for all. She does this through her work in technology, media and investments. 

Sabrina is a Race and Technology Fellow at Stanford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab. Sabrina leads Be Bold Media a global strategy and innovation agency that works with companies and organizations on strategic transformation initiatives, scaling teams, global growth, policy innovation and movement-building. The agency leads award-winning innovative work building digital, technology and media for healthcare, press freedom, humanitarian relief and refugee services and produces the Movement Security Summit, a digital security summit for movement technologists. She organizes The People’s Iftar, a campaign to gather community and raise funds for grassroots organizations serving Muslim communities and Rights x Tech, a forum for technologists and activists. She is the VC-in-Residence at Pipeline Angels, an angel investing group dedicated to changing the face of angel investing. She created the Bold Prize

She is an opinion contributor to MSNBC and NBC News on technology, power and human rights. Sabrina is the founder of Survivor Fund, a political fund focused on championing the rights of survivors of sexual violence and building political power for survivors. She’s a contributor to the new anthology Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World and co-author of the forthcoming report The Ecology of Ethical Technology.  

Previously, Sabrina was an opinion writer for The Guardian, writing regularly on technology and human rights and her work has been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, National Public Radio, Lifehacker, Refinery29, Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Nation, Colorlines, Levo League, Columbia Journalism Review and other outlets.

She is one of Forbes Magazine Top 30 under 30 for Law & Policy and the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society named her a Rising Talent, a special distinction for women leaders in global business and leadership. Friends of Europe recognized her as a European Young Leader for North America and Ebony Magazine featured her in its Power 100 list of the country’s most powerful Black Americans. Washingtonian Magazine named her a Woman to Watch as part of it’s annual Most Powerful Women issue.

As a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, Sabrina worked on issues related to technology, human rights and humanitarian disasters. She’s advised philanthropy on strategic investments to improve diversity in media, civic engagement and healthcare. She has worked for Afghans for Civil Society, Oxfam America, NBC News and National Public Radio. She was a co-founder of End Famine and created #HackingHunger hackathon series. 

She has served on the board of directors of The Project for Middle East Democracy and NARAL Pro-Choice America and sits on the Advisory Boards of TechCongress and Run for Something. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Sabrina is a graduate of Ohio State University where she studied International Relations & Diplomacy, Political Science and Women Studies.