Reem Al-Adhadh

A Saudi Arabian social entrepreneur empowering marginalized women through sustainable fashion and digital literacy programs.

Reem Al-Adhadh is a pioneering social entrepreneur from Saudi Arabia, founder of Woven Voices, a platform creating economic opportunities for disadvantaged women through traditional textile craftsmanship and digital upskilling. Launched in 2020, her initiative has trained over 2,000 women in 15+ Middle Eastern countries, combining heritage preservation with modern business practices.

Her UN Women partnership in 2022 expanded the program to include coding and e-commerce training. Al-Adhadh's flagship project 'Threads of Change' (2023) used AI-driven design tools to help artisans create modern patterns while preserving cultural motifs. This initiative increased artisans' income by 400% in its first year.

She established the Digital Sisters Network in 2024, providing free coding bootcamps in rural Saudi regions. Al-Adhadh's TEDx talk 'Weaving the Future' (2023) has been translated into 12 languages. Despite facing societal resistance, she secured $2.5 million in grants from the SDG Impact Fund to scale her programs. Her work bridges gender equality (#5), decent work (#8), and sustainable consumption (#12) goals of the UN SDGs.