Abeera Akhtar

Abeera Akhtar

Global Affairs + Specialization (offered through 2022), 2020

Pakistan

Abeera Akhtar is a gender-based violence technology products manager for UNICEF, where she leads the development of Virtual Safe Spaces (VSS) and the Referral Pathways Platform (eRPW), online resources for women experiencing gender-based violence. Before joining UNICEF, Abeera was an evaluation and insights fellow for the Digital Impact Alliance at the United Nations Foundation in Washington, DC.  A 2020 graduate of the Master of Global Affairs program, she also holds bachelor’s degrees in sociology and anthropology from the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. As a master of global affairs student, she was the recipient of a Donald & Marilyn Keough Fellowship.

Before coming to Notre Dame, Abeera was a corporate social responsibility officer at Reckitt Benckiser, a British multinational company. She has led grassroots efforts for nuclear disarmament in Pakistan, working for the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated movement Global Zero. Abeera also worked to make the Sustainable Development Goals more accessible to youth, working for the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s Youth Initiative. She is the co-founder of FATE – From Apathy to Empathy, an organization she has represented at forums organized by the US State Department, the US Special Operations Command, the UN, Facebook and Stanford University. Through her work she aims to use intercultural dialogue and social entrepreneurship as a driver for social change.