Lulwa AlHamdan

Saudi Arabian pioneer advancing women's entrepreneurship in tech and renewable energy sectors

Lulwa AlHamdan is a trailblazing Saudi entrepreneur who has transformed opportunities for women in STEM fields within the Kingdom. Born in 1992, she founded Women in Tech Saudi in 2016, an organization that has trained 5,000+ women in coding, AI, and renewable energy technologies. Her initiatives contributed to Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 goals, increasing female tech workforce participation from 17% to 34% in five years.

AlHamdan's most notable achievement is the Solar Sisters Program, which deploys female engineers to install solar panels in rural regions. This project has electrified 12,000 homes and created 800+ jobs for women engineers. Her World Economic Forum article details how her mentorship programs helped 200 startups secure $120 million in funding.

In 2019, she launched the Arab Women's Energy Network, connecting 3,000 professionals across 15 Middle Eastern countries. Her Code for the Kingdom app, downloaded 500,000+ times, provides free coding courses in Arabic. AlHamdan's TED Talk "Saudi Women Powering the Future" has been viewed 1.2 million times globally.

She was named UNESCO Women in Science Laureate in 2022 and recently partnered with Masdar Institute to establish the first all-female solar energy research center in the Middle East. Her work has inspired regional governments to allocate $500 million for women's STEM programs by 2025.