Ziad Ahmed

Ziad Ahmed is an 18-year-old freshman at Yale University. He is an American-Muslim, Bangladeshi, and passionate social justice activist. Ziad founded a teen organization, redefy (www.redefy.org), committed to furthering equality in 2013. Redefy has grown immensely with hundreds of students internationally on the team, over 3,000 likes on Facebook, and over 100,000 hits on redefy.org. Through Redefy, Ziad has been recognized as a 2017 Global Teen Leader, a High School Trailblazer by MTV, a Top 15 Young Prodigy Changing the World by Business Insider, a Diana Award Winner, and a recipient of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations. Ziad has also worked for the Martin O'Malley 2016 Presidential Campaign, holding the role of Co-Head of YouthForOMalley. Ziad has furthered his political engagement through serving as an intern for Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, as a VSFS Intern for the US Department of the State, and as a founding member of Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman's Youth Advisory Council. He has also volunteered for the Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential Campaign, working directly under the Muslim Outreach Director. As an entrepreneur, Ziad has co-founded JV Consulting Inc. (www.juvconsulting.com), which is a youth consulting firm. He serves as the CVO of the company, and seeks to empower Generation Z with the opportunity to communicate directly with businesses about what exactly appeals to youth. Additionally, he has given four TEDxTalks, has spoken at forums such as the Council on Foreign Relations, has written for publications such as Teen Vogue, and serves on boards such as the Marketing Advisory Board for DoSomething.org.He has been featured on the Washington Post, NBC, CCTV, TIME, BBC, Bloomberg Businessweek, AJ+, and other notable sources. He has even been personally commended by President Barack Obama, and has had the honor of being invited to the White House three times. Overwhelmingly though, Ziad is just your average teenager grappling with identity, struggling to balance it all, pursuing his passions, and spending way too much time on twitter.