Gehad Hamdy

Gehad Hamdy is an Egyptian dentist and feminist activist working against gender based violence. She was named as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2022. She founded Speak Up and is one of the leaders of Connecting Humanity.^[1]

Hamdy received a Bachelor of Dental Surgery from October University for Modern Sciences and Arts.^[2]

Hamdy founded Speak Up in 2020, a feminist initiative that works through social networks to identify aggressors of gender violence, sexual harassment and rape.^[3] Speak Up encourages women to speak out about harassment,^[4][5][6] provide legal and emotional support.^[7][8][9] It also pressures authorities to prosecute^[10][11] and change laws, and highlights narritives of rape culture in the media.^[12][13][14] Speak Up was involved in the criminalization of Female Genital Mutilation in Egypt in March 2021 and the prosecution of Michael Fahmy for sexually assaulting 6 girls.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Hamdy is one of the leaders of Connecting Humanity, an activist collective which provides internet access to people in Gaza using donated eSIMs, allowing them to connect to networks outside of Gaza.^[19][20][21]

• BBC 100 list of "inspiring and influential women", 2022^[1]
• Gold Award Winner: Social Change Maker of the Year in Gender by The Stevie Awards, 2022^[2]
• Finalist for the Equal Rights and Non-Discrimination award at the World Justice Forum, 2022^[2]
• Finalist for Aidex Humanitarian Hero Award, 2022^[2]
• The Changemaker and The Humanitarian awards by Women SME Leaders Awards by Entrepreneur Middle East and Mastercard, 2022^[2]
• International Humanitarian award by Women4Africa, 2021^[2]
• Finalist for the Women Empowerment Award by Africa Women Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF), 2021^[2]