ISLAMABAD: Late last year when six Pakistanis made Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 in the US, Pakistan was pretty ecstatic. Last night, however, news erupted that for the Asian rendition of the listicle whose spots are the most coveted for young rising stars ... we scored nine spots!
Pakistan has the sixth-largest population in the world, and within that population 60 percent fall in the 18-40 demographic. In other words, we have a large number of young people who can potentially change the world.
Forbes’ list includes a singer who uses her platform for activism, tech and business-savvy individuals, social entrepreneurs and people looking to revolutionize health care in the South Asian country.
Perhaps the most recognizable name on the list is one of Pakistan’s leading singers, Momina Mustehsen. The 25-year-old was catapulted into the spotlight after she performed a record-breaking (we are talking hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, the highest of any from Pakistan) duet to “Afreen Afreen” with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan on the musical production platform Coke Studio. Mustehsen took her platform in stride, using it for a number of awareness campaigns, including one with UN Women.
Sadia Bashir had a mission to help women break into the world of tech and design by way of video game production — and she did just that. She co-founded Pixel Art Games Academy, which provides training in game design, production, gaming programming, digital art and animation targeted at young women. The program is directly responding to the gender gap in the gaming industry. Thirty-three percent of their students are (and always must be) women, a roster Pixel Art Games Academy keeps up through the scholarships Bashir created to encourage women to join.
Brothers in real life and in business, Adnan and Adeel Shaffi, 28 and 29 respectively, are the masterminds behind PriceOye, a price comparison website which they launched in 2015.
Many online shopping websites do not cater to cities outside Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi — a mistake that not only costs retailers but costs the people living outside the big cities as well.
PriceOye does price comparisons for electronics and uses data analytics to help retailers in their own marketing. With website numbers in the hundreds of thousands per month, PriceOye addresses the gaps that traditional e-commerce in Pakistan is not, a gap which leads smaller cities out of the running for great deals.
The singer-activist has been highlighted for her work on women’s issues, cyberbullying, human rights and also for being honored as one of the BBC’s 100 Most Influential Women of 2017.
Neurostic is a health care startup launched by 24-year-olds Muhammad Asad Raza and Abrahim Saha. Neurotstic aims to provide high-quality prosthetics and medical devices (such as cochlear implants) — without the astronomical associated costs. It also addresses clinical decision support, fitness and health monitoring, with a focus on data analytics for health care needs.
Raza and Saha are answering the call of a dire need in Pakistan where health care and resources can be sought to come by. Their prosthetic and implantable devices not only cater to the population in Pakistan but Afghanistan, Iran and Syria as well.
Another Pakistani named for his work in health care is also the youngest of the honorees. Muhammad Shaheer Niazi, 17, is the first to photograph the movement of ions. Forbes named him for the impressive science feat that depicted charged ions creating a honeycomb. This level of research is indispensable to biomedical research. Niazi has also been published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.
At 23, Syed Faizan Hussan is the founder of startup Parihelion Systems. With a mission to use tech-backed products for the improvement of the highest volume of lives, Perihelion Systems is addressing a number of Pakistan’s health issues. Products it has produced include One Health, a tracking and surveillance system used to predict outbreaks of disease, an invaluable resource for a country with a massive population and limited health care resources. Another product is the Edu-Aid, a sign language translating software.
The ninth name to make the list is Hamza Farrukh, 24, a portfolio solutions strategist at Goldman Sachs in London, who in his spare time has embarked on a fantastic social venture helping out in Pakistan. Farrukh is the founder of Bondh E Shams, a solar water project aiming to respond to areas in Pakistan with limited, scarce or no water access. Bondh E Shams, which translates as “droplets of the sun,” comes at a time when certain regions of Pakistan are affected not only by drought but also water that is not safe to drink.
Farrukh’s project has set up two solar-powered wells which provide safe, clean water to 1,500 residents of a small village in Pakistan. One of these wells has the capacity to supply clean water to an estimated 5,000 people every day.
Nine Pakistanis Make Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia
Nine Pakistanis Make Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia
Italian stars Ludovico Einaudi, Matteo Bocelli to perform at AlUla in January
- The two performances are the latest in the AlUla Moments Concert Series
ALULA: Two Italian musical stars will perform in Saudi Arabia next month as part of the AlUla Moments Concert Series, it was confirmed on Monday.
Internationally acclaimed pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi, who will take the stage on Jan. 17, is celebrated for blending classical and contemporary styles during his career which has spanned four decades.
He has previously performed at some of the world’s most iconic venues, including Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Sydney Opera House.
Einaudi’s compositions have earned him numerous awards and multiple platinum certifications.
A week later, on Jan. 24, the spotlight will shine on Matteo Bocelli, the rising Italian tenor and youngest son of legendary opera star Andrea Bocelli, who will perform as part of his debut headline world tour.
The two performances are the latest in the Concert Series, which have included Bocelli senior in April 2021, John Legend in November 2022 and Alicia Keys in February 2023.
Tickets for both performances are expected to sell quickly, and can be bought at this link.
Robbie Williams is here to entertain you with ‘Better Man’
DUBAI: “I want to be the best entertainer on the planet next year,” British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams said ahead of the UAE premiere of his biographical musical “Better Man” on Sunday.
And he is certainly making inroads on that resolution — fresh off a gig at Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Nights concert series, and before he hits the stage on the Robbie Williams Live 2025 tour across Europe, Williams sat down to discuss the Michael Gracey-directed film in Dubai.
It is a raw look at Williams’ life — his early showbiz years as a part of the Take That crew, his battle with addiction and family issues before settling down.
In the film, helmed by Gracey of “The Greatest Showman” fame, Williams is played by a CGI-generated monkey in an otherwise human cast. It was a creative gamble by the director, who previously said that the decision was inspired by conversations with Williams where he described himself as a performing monkey, according to the BBC.
“Well, I think that I would like to see myself as a lion, but I’m not. I’m cheeky and I’m silly, and I’m irreverent and I’m naughty, and I’m not alpha. I am a monkey. There’s vulnerability in monkeys, in apes, simians; I think they’re more human than humans,” Williams said during a media roundtable attended by Arab News.
In the film, the chimp is played by Jonno Davies, but there is an element of Williams in it. “I was in a cage, and 150 cameras, or something like that, (pointed at) you. And they scanned me, and then I had to do 120 different facial expressions to a bunch of cameras in front of me, and then they took all of that information and overlaid it over Jonno, who plays me so brilliantly, and those are my eyes, and those are my expressions,” he said.
While the movie offers a warning of sorts about the pitfalls of fame, the “Let Me Entertain You” singer explained: “I’m addicted to success more than I’m addicted to fame. I excel in showmanship; it’s the rest of everything else I’m not very good at. So, fame gives me the opportunity to be successful, to write a great song, to have it translate into people’s hearts, but to do stadiums, too.
“But this brings with its own problems as well, because, you know, I’ve got so much wrapped up in being Robbie Williams. The best thing about fame is that it gives me the chance to be successful.”
The 50-year-old pop superstar has been candid about his struggles with addiction in the past — he was admitted to a rehabilitation center in the US in 2007 and spoke about his addiction to drugs and alcohol during the 1990s in a four-part Netflix documentary released in 2023.
Fatima Al-Banawi celebrates highlights ahead of January’s Joy Awards in Riyadh
DUBAI: After topping off a stellar 2024 by co-hosting the closing ceremony of the star-studded Red Sea Film Festival in December, Saudi director and actress Fatima Al-Banawi took to Instagram this week to share behind-the-scenes snafus that occurred before the event.
The star, who is nominated in the Best Film Director category at the upcoming Joy Awards in Riyadh, shared a carousel of photos taken during and after the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, including a poignant shot of her grandfather.
“I don’t know where the words came from, but truly behind every grand appearance there are dark nights, dim lights, a sudden illness, and a liver sandwich that drips a sauce on your dress. But what comforts us through all the moments of exhaustion and fatigue are the celebrations that unfold honoring the stories we tell. And above all that, the moment you return home and find your grandfather watching you on the television screen (sic),” she captioned the post.
Al-Banawi made her directorial debut with “Basma” this year and she is nominated for an award at the Joy Awards, set to be held on Jan. 18.
The Best Film Director nominees include Tarek Al-Eryan (“Welad Rizq 3: Elqadia”), Ali Al-Kalthami (“Night Courier”), Fatima Al-Banawi (“Basma”), and Moataz Al-Touni (“Ex Merati”).
“Basma” launched on Netflix in June and Al-Banawi not only directed the movie, but wrote it (and an original song for the soundtrack) and played the title role — a young Saudi woman who returns home to Jeddah after two years away studying in the States to find that her parents have divorced without telling her after struggling to deal with the mental illness of her father, the well-respected Dr. Adly.
“My undergrad is in psychology. My father’s a psychologist. My sister’s a psychologist. I have psychology and sociology in my DNA,” Al-Banawi told Arab News at the time of the film’s release. “We talk about Sigmund Freud over lunch, you know?”
And so, when she sat down to write her first feature, it was natural that she would choose mental health as its focus.
“Dissonance was a word I found when I started working on ‘Basma.’ I wasn’t familiar with this term: to be in a complete state of, not just denial, but not responding in any way — action or awareness — to what (is obvious),” she said. “I felt it around me everywhere; things that were brushed under the carpet for years and years until they piled up and a person or a family could not handle them anymore.”
Review: Award-winning ‘Moon’ comes out on top as a tense thriller
JEDDAH: Iraqi Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub seems to have found her niche telling stories of women in distress. While her debut fiction feature film, “Sonne,” was awarded the Best First Film Award at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival, her latest, “Moon,” sees the director wade into similar territory.
After clinching the special jury prize at the 77th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, it played at the recent Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah — and to me it was one of the event's highlights.
“Moon” trails Sarah (Florentina Holzinger, who is quite good as a foreigner bewildered by her surroundings), an unhappy martial arts fighter, who having hit the dead end in her career, takes up an assignment with a wealthy Jordanian family whose shady dealings soon make her uneasy.
Asked to train three sisters after her humiliating defeat in the ring, Sarah grabs the chance, hoping to find a new beginning and earn back her respect. But what awaits her there is beyond her imagination — a household that is run with eerie brutality by the girls' brother in the absence of their parents. Sarah is frightened when things begin to spiral out of her control, and with the sisters' steely defiance toward any sort of regulated life, “Moon” plays out like a thriller and boxes us into a deadly climax.
Ayub specialises in filming the loss of freedom and examines how women struggle circumvent this. The sisters' trips to the mall seem like one way of tasting freedom — despite the watchful eye of a burly bodyguard — and the audience feels every bit as claustrophobic.
Unfortunately, there are pitfalls in the narrative with some of the protagonist’s actions going unexplained but what keeps the work flowing is the beautiful relationship among the sisters and how they ultimately come to trust their trainer.
Georgina Rodriguez steals the spotlight at Dubai event
DUBAI: Argentine model Georgina Rodriguez made a head-turning appearance this week at the Globe Soccer Dubai Awards 2024, held as part of the Dubai International Sports Conference 2024.
She attended the event alongside her longtime partner, Cristiano Ronaldo, who was honored with two awards: Best Middle East Player 2024 and All-Time Top Goal Scorer.
Rodriguez turned heads in a fitted black dress featuring a sweetheart neckline and lace-detailed sleeves. She completed her look with black pointed-toe heels and carried a matching black purse.
The couple was joined by Ronaldo’s eldest son, Cristiano Jr., making it a family affair at one of the year’s most celebrated sports events.
Upon accepting the award, Ronaldo, who plays for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr FC, expressed his gratitude on stage, saying: “For me, it is a big pleasure to win this trophy. It is very different than the other ones. It is a pleasure to be in this gala. (There are) a lot of champions here, young generations and old generations.”
He continued: “I have to say thank you to my own family, my kids. They are all here in Dubai. My oldest son is there. My wife is here. She’s my lovely support all the time to carry on to play. In one month I’m gonna be 40 years old but I’m not finished yet. I will continue because I want to win titles, I want to be a champion.”
After the event, Ronaldo shared pictures with his 646 million Instagram followers, captioning the post: “A great way to end the year. Thank you to my teammates, staff, to everyone who has supported me along the way, and especially to my family. There is still more to come.”
The couple were later spotted at Nobu Dubai in Atlantis the Palm, where there was also Brazilian football player Neymar and former Italian footballer Alessandro Del Piero.
Rodriguez and Ronaldo traveled to Dubai following their family vacation in Lapland, Finland, where they celebrated the festive season.
The couple shared glimpses of their activities on Instagram, including an in-house dinner with their children, sledding adventures, ice baths and more, giving fans a peek into their holiday moments.
