Driving Change in the Middle East: A Conversation with Manal Al-Sharif

Please join the Center for Strategic and International Studies for a Smart Women, Smart Power conversation about women's rights, challenges, and opportunities in the Middle East with Manal Al-Sharif, author of Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening. She is the founder of the #Women2Drive movement and is best known for recording herself driving a car and posting the video to YouTube in 2011, which led to her being arrested and jailed. 

Al-Sharif has since become a persistent voice in the women's rights movement in the Middle East. She was awarded the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at the Oslo Freedom Forum. TIME magazine named her one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2012, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called her "a driving force for change." She holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from King Abdulaziz University and was the first woman to hold a position in the information security division at Aramco, the Saudi national oil company.

Signed copies of Daring to Drive will be available for sale following the event.

This series is made possible with support from Citi. Additional support provided by AT&T.