Maha Hosain Aziz – Keynote Speaker

Dr Maha Hosain Aziz is a professor focused on global risk and prediction at NYU’s MA International Relations Program, leading the annual global risk prediction project with Wikistrat, the world’s first crowdsourced consultancy. She serves on the 2023-2024 Global Future Council (GFC) on Complex Risks, previously a member of the 2020-2022 GFC on frontier risk. She is the author of the seven-time award-winning book, “Future World Order” (2020), on global risk which has been called a “must-read” (Dr Ian Bremmer, Kishore Mahbubani) written by a “global thinker to watch” (Dr Nouriel Roubini) and an “engaged scholar activist” (Dr Parag Khanna). The two sequels include “Global Spring: Predictions for a Post-Pandemic World” (2023) and “10 Shock Events By 2030” (2024).

She created ten-time award-winning VR/AR political comic book “The Global Kid” (2021) for tweens (with edtech partner Musemio); she also drew the seven-time award-winning original (2016) and is working on her first political comic book for adults on global extremism called “Evolution” (2024). Her ideas have been featured in outlets including Huffington Post, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Forbes, CNN, Observer, Businessweek and Tatler.

Maha Hosain Aziz is a keynote speaker to government, nonprofit and corporate audiences worldwide, speaking everywhere from COP27, the Commonwealth Secretariat and European Parliament to the Bosphorus Forum, Cyfy Africa, Asia Society, Betaworks Studios and the American Apparel & Footwear Association. Her recent virtual and in-person speaking engagements have focused on explaining what’s next in a post-pandemic world in terms of geopolitical, political, economic and social risks, including the impact of the Ukraine war, tech advances and climate change.

Previously, she consulted with government and corporate clients on global risk and future trends. She was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics’ Institute of Global Affairs; a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute; chairwoman of the New Silk Road Generation, the first e-mentoring program for university students in Afghanistan; and a senior teaching fellow in the Politics and International Studies Department, SOAS University of London. Dr Aziz is a Jordanian-born Pakistani who grew up in the Middle East (Jordan, Saudi Arabia), Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia), Europe (UK, Greece) and the US.

Maha Hosain Aziz is a social scientist trained at Brown (BA), Columbia (MA) and the LSE (MSc, PhD). She earned a Bachelor’s at Brown University, a Master’s at Columbia University, a Master’s and PhD at the LSE, and a research certification in Leveraging Crowds in the Public Sector at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.