Ahmed Shihab-Eldin is an Emmy-nominated journalist, social-media addict and news producer.
In 2012, he was featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list of ‘young disruptors, innovators and media entrepreneurs impatient to change the world’. That same year, Ahmed left Al Jazeera English and joined HuffPost Live as a founding member,where he currently hosts and works as a producer for what Mashable’s readers chose as the most innovative media product to emerge in 2012.
In 2011, Ahmed co-created, produced and co-hosted Al Jazeera English’s groundbreaking social media show, “The Stream,” an award-winning interactive talk show, which sources stories from social networks around the globe. “Bahrain: The Social Media Battle Continues”, a 45 minute TV program he produced and co-hosted, was nominated for an Emmy Award for Most Innovative Program.
Before joining Al Jazeera English, Ahmed worked as a freelance reporter in the Middle East. Ahmed also launched the Doha Tribeca Film Festival in 2010 and served as a correspondent as well as Head of Digital Content for The Doha Film Institute. Before Qatar, Ahmed worked as an interactive producer at PBS’s award-winning documentary series Wide Angle, a producer for The New York Times and as a videographer for organizations including PBS’s FRONTLINE/World as well as the Rockefeller Foundation. Ahmed has reported from Lebanon, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Jordan and other locations in the U.S. and Arab world. Ahmed’s work has appeared on NPR, WNYC, Time Out Magazine and other syndicated newspapers across the country. In 2013, he was honored with the 2013 Professional Excellence Award by NAAP-NY.
Soon after graduating with honors from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Ahmed began teaching digital media and news aggregation as an adjunct professor, where he continues to teach today. He also advised students on their master’s projects and serving as a consultant on News21, a collaboration of 12 journalism schools under the Carnegie-Knight initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. Ahmed continues to speak at leading international media and technology conferences across the globe, including the Google’s Zeitgeist 2011 in the UK and the US. In 2008, his Masters Project at Columbia University titled, DefiningMiddleGround.com, won a Webby Award. In 2013, Ahmed co-edited Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions, his first book ever published.
Born in California, Ahmed spent most of his formative years between Kuwait, Austria, California, and Egypt, where he was raised for nearly a decade. His parents were born in Palestine and he speaks English and Arabic fluently and is proficient in French and German.