Safa Al-Ahmed

Saudi Arabian environmentalist pioneering renewable energy adoption in the Middle East

Safa Al-Ahmed is a visionary environmental scientist and entrepreneur from Saudi Arabia who has fundamentally transformed the region's approach to renewable energy. As founder of Green Khaliji, she developed the first solar-powered seawater desalination system that reduces energy consumption by 40%. Her work directly addresses two critical challenges in the Arabian Peninsula: freshwater scarcity and fossil fuel dependency. Al-Ahmed's innovations have been deployed across six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, providing clean water to over 2 million people while cutting carbon emissions equivalent to removing 150,000 cars from roads annually. She also pioneered the Solar Women Initiative, training 500+ Arab women in renewable energy technologies between 2020-2023. Her TEDx talk "Deserts to Decentralized Energy" has been viewed 2.3 million times, establishing her as a global voice for sustainable development in arid regions. Al-Ahmed's 2022 policy paper Renewable Energy Framework for Desert Nations influenced the UAE's 2030 Energy Strategy and inspired similar initiatives in Morocco and Tunisia. In 2023, she launched the first solar-powered mobile health clinics for nomadic Bedouin communities, combining healthcare access with clean energy deployment in previously unreachable areas.