My name is on the awards.
These names are on the work.
A chatbot infused with artificial intelligence — and human intervention.
Raaji answered the ninety percent: what a period is, how to use a pad, why cramps happen, whether a hymen tears when you cycle. But the flow had trip-wires. Keywords for abuse, harassment, forced marriage, self-harm, bleeding that wouldn't stop. When one fired, Raaji stopped pretending to be a friend and did the one thing a cartoon can't — she handed the girl to a person.
irregular or absent periods, heavy bleeding, pain that didn't match the textbook, "is this normal" questions no aunt would answer. a volunteer doctor replied within the hour — anonymous on both sides.
shame that had turned into not eating. fear of a wedding already arranged. the sentence "i don't want to be here." raaji held the conversation open until a counsellor took it. nobody was told to "just talk to your mother."
harassment at school, abuse at home, a girl being pulled out of class for good. a social worker — and, where needed, a lawyer — who knew which door in that district actually opened. the chatbot's real job was knowing when to stop being a chatbot.
no name. no number. no email. she still got you to a human.
Shaiwana Pathan (Nisar) — ran every field trip, every listening party, every pad workshop in rural Sindh while I was in California. Commonwealth Youth Award, 2023, for it. Co-founder in all but the paperwork.
Suha Suleman Lalani — chief marketing officer. Grants, Raaji Pads, the MIT Sloan and DMZ conversations, the Toronto push.
Jaya Rajwani — technology lead and lead software engineer. She built the chatbot: Dialogflow, the dashboard, the Urdu voice, the whole platform.- MMuqaddar — engineering alongside Jaya, on the build and the deployments.
Musfirah — content and the white paper. Neha Haresh, Alina, Maleeha — the volunteers who uploaded the parties and ran the socials.
Tino Hahn — co-founder. Said "build her a chatbot" before anyone else would have.
Anjum Malik, RSPN — the communications officer who took Raaji into the SUCCESS programme and told Tech for Good the villages wanted her.
SRSO — Jamal Mustafa Shoro, Samina Barkat Ali, Aqsa Tahreem, Abdul Mannan Chachar. Dundh, the artisans, the interest-free loans, the pads.
FemTech Lab, UK — Karina Varizova. Mentored the pads into a business and made the introductions to Essity and Highline Beta.
Jehan Ara — The Nest I/O, Karachi. Took Aurat Raaj in when it was a "why" and not yet an idea. One of my biggest role models; she let me find the journey instead of pushing it.
Christian Ehl — "Don't Talk Do." The DO School mentor who kept saying it until I did.
Ida Tin — founder of Clue, the woman who coined "femtech." Named Raaji one of her five favourite startups in Sifted, 2019.- NRSP & TRDP — the other two rural support programmes who signed the MOUs and gave us their community health workers.
- Four investors who chose to stay anonymous — cheques written without a deck, without a pitch. One of them, $10,000, when nobody else would.
- Uzma, Urbeli, Ghulam Sughra and every champion in the 22 villages. They are the reason any of this reached anyone.
- → World Summit Awards — national winner, Pakistan; global impact story
- → MIT Solve · Vodafone Americas Foundation Innovation for Women Prize, 2019
- → tve Global Sustainability Film Award at BAFTA, London 2018 — The Ultimate Survivor, “AI: Empowering the Future”
- → She Loves Tech Pakistan, first place · UNICEF MHM Innovation Challenge
- → Roddenberry Foundation Catalyst Fund · BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt · UNFPA
- → U.S. State Department IVLP, AI for Social Good · Visiting Social Entrepreneur, Stanford GSB
- → Covered by ITU AI for Good, Pioneers Post, Tech for Good, Express Tribune, Feminism in India
nine chapters, the pilot data, the photos from every room, and the findings we kept shouting.
the full story → where she started: qandeel →saba@poetica.studio