Jeddah: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has extended Saudi medical scientist Dr. Hayat Sindi’s prestige role as a Goodwill Ambassador for another two years. Organization’s director general, Audrey Azoulay announced this.
Hayat Sindi was born in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. She was given the title in recognition of her outstanding career achievements with international impact as a Saudi scientist.
Hayat Sindi obtained a Ph.D. in biotechnology from the University of Cambridge. She was the first woman from the Gulf to get this achievement. She was also one of the first female members of the Saudi Shoura Council.
Hayat Sindi, alongside a team from Harvard University, co-founded and co-invented a program to create affordable diagnostic devices for millions of people in impoverished regions by name Diagnostics for All.
Aiming at empowering and inspiring the next generation of innovators to realize their dreams and contribute to the world, Hayat Sindi founded the i2 Institute. She also invented a low-cost diagnostic tool for early detection of breast cancer.
Hayat Sindi was appointed chief scientific adviser to the president of the Islamic Development Bank in 2017. Her name appeared in Newsweek’s 150 Women Who Shake the World. Forbes ranked her second on a list of the most powerful Arab women in Saudi Arabia. Newsweek and The Daily Beast named her as one of 150 fearless women. BBC, in 2018, selected her among the 100 most inspiring and influential women in the world.
G20 recently appointed Sindi as global ambassador for the health and development partnership of the group.