Dr. Sakena Yacoobi is the President & Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an organization she founded in 1995 in response to the lack of education and health care that the Afghan people faced after decades of war and strife. Dr. Yacoobi is also the President & Executive Director of Sakena Fund formerly known as Creating Hope International (CHI).

Dr. Yacoobi has established 352 Learning Centers, four schools, a hospital, and a radio/ TV station in Afghanistan and is the recipient of six honorary doctorates including from Princeton University. Each year, Dr. Yacoobi speaks at numerous events, conferences and at institutions such as the UN, Stanford University and Oxford University. Dr. Yacoobi particularly enjoys engaging with youth at schools, inspiring them to be globally minded citizens.

She serves on a number of boards and panels including, New Global Citizens, the Advisory Council for the Center for Social Impact Learning at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Women’s Refugee Commission, and is a former board member for the Global Fund for Women. She is an advisor to the Fetzer Institute, the International Academy for Multicultural Cooperation, and is a member of the US - Afghan Women’s Council.

Dr. Yacoobi is a respected expert and speaker especially on the subjects of girls’ education, life in Afghanistan, health, refugees and women’s empowerment. Dr. Yacoobi was honored in 2017 with the Sunhak Peace Prize, and, in 2016, was the Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education awardee, the 2015 WISE Prize for Education Laureate and the 2013 recipient of the Opus Prize. Dr. Yacoobi is a Skoll Social Entrepreneur, Schwab Social Entrepreneur, and Ashoka fellow, a Harvard University Executive Fellow, and was nominated as one of 1,000 women for the Nobel Peace Prize, her list of awards and nominations go on to be extensively remarkable. Dr. Yacoobi’s life has been dedicated to providing quality health & education, empowering women, educating children so that her war torn country, will have a new generation that will enact change to achieve peace and prosperity for Afghanistan.