About

Born in Khartoum, Sudan in 1986, and raised in Qatar, Ahmad is a social entrepreneur and digital media and marketing consultant. He launched his blog The Sudanese Thinker in 2006 after getting frustrated by the lack of young Sudanese speaking for themselves about Darfur. His provocative posts and activism helped spawn the English-speaking Sudanese blogosphere, and became one of the main sources for international journalists and audiences seeking a fresh and unique Sudanese perspective on current affairs and Sudanese events.

Besides enabling Ahmad to have a voice, new media exposed him to a world beyond the political and religious fundamentalism of his early childhood and teenage years, and shattered many misconceptions he previously held. Soon after, he began writing on secularism, religion and liberal democracy.

In 2011, after blogging anonymously for 5 years, he decided to reveal his identity and write openly under his real name. In his own words, "something fundamental has shifted. Initially, blogging anonymously was a convenient comfort, but eventually for various reasons it became suffocating, and I decided to break free."

Ahmad's blog was nominated as a finalist three times in a row for the Weblog Awards. He's a contributor to Global Voices Online, and the forthcoming author of a book on Islam and new media, as well as the organizer of The Future of Islam In the Age of New Media, a groundbreaking and acclaimed online audio seminar featuring 60 speakers in 60 seconds each for a total of 60 insightful minutes. He's currently pursuing a Masters in philosophy along with research on the impact of new media on contemporary Islamic thought.