I feel the most comfortable where I'm the least comfortable, so I’ve always pushed the boundaries of my comfort zone, which requires a lot of self-exploration. 

I’m Iranian-American. My trajectory goes from Chicago to London, Geneva, Iran and Vienna. I grew up and studied my undergrad in Chicago. Then I moved to London, where I did a Master's Degree at the London School of Economics in Human Rights Law and philosophy. After finishing it, I went to Geneva and found that I wanted to do something about the development of the world, and finally ended up getting a job in Vienna.

My community outreach work back home is what inspired me to get into the world of Human Rights, to constantly try to understand the struggle that other people face, and I have the privilege of not facing or not dealing with.

To keep understanding, I joined the World Data Lab. I didn't know what I was getting into. I thought it was going to be something different, but I'm very happy with the results. Just as I needed to understand the concept of having rights, people need to understand what's going on around the world, so the Data Lab uses the power of data translating it into meaningful words for people to understand it, visualise it and hopefully help the public sector make better decisions. Also, how they need to target the right groups and the right projects to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

How many times people pick up a newspaper, read it, but don't know what to do with the information? The point of the Data Lab is to make sense of data, we take publicly available data from the World Bank, the IMF, and others, call offices and household surveys, and then we combine demographic modelling and econometric modelling.

Right now, we're a small group, a core of five; but we have a global collaborative network of experts in their own field. We've been focused on data to achieve the S.D.G.1, World Water Clock and the World Hunger Clock. We are working with the Germany, Shanghai and Kenya governments, as well as with some German and American NGOs. Officially, my work is client relations, but this is a start-up, so we kind of trade on doing what we can to advance.

I feel good adding value to someone else's life, which I get through listening to a bunch of peoples’ stories; I try to be very sympathetic and open to all the different possible combinations of human existence and human relationships. Somehow, being good with people is always a lubricant that could help you in every facet of life.

The beliefs that you may normally have, when you're outside your environment or framework, you're kinda floating, figuring out and organising what your own values are. I like the idea of telling stories. With data, that's a challenge for me because it's not normally what I work with. So I'm happy to explore something I wasn't expecting.