The Kulna Team
Our team emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings and have direct lived experience of organizing, uprising, arrest, imprisonment, torture, exile, and the long work of rebuilding. We carry that experience into our activism, art, and thought. Our members are prolific writers and media producers with deep credibility, coming from communities directly affected by the systemic crises we study. Our team members are:
Ahmed Gatnash
Executive Director
Libyan-British author and engineer. Kawaakibi’s co-founder and Executive Director. An expert on MENA authoritarianism and democracy movements.
Iyad El-Baghdadi
Lead: How to Liberate
Palestinian-Norwegian thinker and author. Internationallyrecognised expert on geopolitics, disinformation and transnational repression.
Ammara Alavi
Head of Operations
Kulna’s Operations Lead, an experienced Pakistani Norwegian project manager and developer.
Ramy Essam
Lead: Shefa
Revolutionary musician and artist known as the voice of Tahrir square. Torture survivor and healing advocate. Live event and broadcast media production specialist.
Khalid Al-Baih
Lead: Fadaa
Award-winning Sudanese political artist, analyst, and curator. Lead for Kulna’s art and culture space. Inaugural Soros Art Fellow
Leyla Hussein
Wellbeing Specialist
Somali-British psychotherapist, award-winning anti-FGM campaigner and former Rector of the University of St Andrews.
Ori Goldberg
Editorial
Scholar, author, and former national security consultant who has become a prominent and prolific Israeli voice of dissent and moral clarity after Oct 7.
Kristine Vegard
Lead: Narrative & Visual
Norwegian artist, designer, and ex-economist. Kulna’s lead for narrative & visual identity.
Isabelle Davodi
Community Lead
Kulna’s Community Lead, host of the Shefa podcast.
Mohammad Saad Bin Riaz
Head of Platform
Media production expert and the brains behind Pakistan’s largest independent podcast platform, Eon