As a senior software engineer, Rana has global responsibility for the tech and entrepreneurship fields. She’s passionate about building new commercial tech companies that tackle the biggest social challenges in the developed world. Excited by technology, Rana’s driven by the desire to use her skills, experience, and energy to have a personal impact on the social issues that matter.
She used to be the Product Development and Women’s Inclusivity Manager at Mercy Corps in Gaza. Rana has global responsibility for the attraction, engagement, development, and experience of Mercy Corps most important asset – its people. She championed its mission ‘helping people build secure, productive and just communities.’ playing a critical role in enabling the organisation ‘to commit to achieving demonstrable impact for stakeholders, using their feedback to innovate, learn and improve.’ With a growing employee base, Rana enabled Mercy Corps to scale, while working on the powerful elements that have made the organization so successful in gender equality to date.
Rana brings 9 years of people leadership experience across multiple industries, geographies, and scale of businesses. Before joining Mercy Corps, Rana served as Product Manager of Microsoft first lab in Palestine and a leader in the outsourcing industry in different Saudi Companies.
Rana has been working as a backend developer since 2010 and has experience in establishing two startups one for artificial intelligence software applications and the other for business organisations software environments. She established and led the Palestine Code Academy at Gaza Sky Geeks in partnership with Founders and Coders, she is also the founder of the first women-only coding club in the area.
As a youth programs’ lead, Rana’s passion is around culture. She has the opportunity to work alongside Angel Hack, Iridescent, PCRF and Christian Aid, all is non-profit youth empowerment and culture space. She is an advisor to several young girls, as well as a mentor to many startups in business analysis and product development.
Rana holds a BSc in Computer Engineering and an MBA from Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine. She is working now on exploring new markets to start her new social enterprise to bridge the gap in diversity in tech from different angels. The mission of this enterprise is to unlock new opportunities for people in hard-hit places by globalisation and automation focusing on the women in minority communities by upskilling them to be qualified enough to join the tech industry.