Join us for a webinar on Urdu as a heritage language, as Masooma Aftab, Hamid Rizvi, Zeerak Ahmed, and Kiran Khalid discuss the preservation of linguistic ties in the global Pakistani diaspora.

Speakers

Zeerak Ahmed is a designer, engineer and writer. During the day Zeerak is a Senior UX Design Lead for Amazon's Last Mile division. He runs the Matnsaz initiative to develop breakthrough Urdu software, and writes the Hamnawa blog on Pakistani pop music. Zeerak holds a Masters in Design Engineering with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science, and a Bachelors of Science and Engineering from Princeton University.

Masooma Aftab holds a M.A in Early Childhood Studies, and has significant experience in developing educational materials, delivering educational content and working with immigrant children to improve learning outcomes. Hamid Rizvi, prior Entrepreneur in Residence at a venture builder, has experience serving as GM at a San Francisco based fintech startup, and Director of growth strategy and M&A at a large Canadian company. Together, they are the couple behind Inglish For Kids: a series of books designed to encourage children to learn Urdu using the English alphabet. The fun and engaging books use simple words and easy sentences keeping North American and UK based kids in mind. Having launched in September of 2020, Inglish for Kids now comprises 12 books across 4 reading levels, with plans to introduce new products in April.

Kiran Khalid is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of newsroom experience. A graduate of the broadcast journalism program at the University of Texas, she has worked for affiliates of every network (CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC) in markets across the U.S., including Austin, Mobile, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Kiran’s on-air debut in 1996 for the CBS affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas made her the first Pakistani-American woman on broadcast news. She is a member of the APF Board of Directors and Vice President at the public relations firm Edelman in Washington, D.C.