17 Facts About Roya Mahboob

Roya Mahboob founded and is CEO of the Afghan Citadel Software Company, a full-service software development company based in Herat, Afghanistan.

Roya Mahboob has received attention for being among the first IT female CEOs in Afghanistan, where it is still relatively rare for women to work outside the home.

On 18 April 2013, Mahboob was named to Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2013 for her work in building internet classrooms in high schools in Afghanistan and for Women's Annex, a multilingual blog and video site hosted by Film Annex.

The Time magazine introduction to Roya Mahboob was written by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook at the time and the author of "Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead".

Roya Mahboob is known for her work with online film distribution platform and Web Television Network Film Annex on the Afghan Development Project.

Roya Mahboob was born in Herat, Afghanistan, but left the country with her family in the wake of the Taliban to live in Iran.

Roya Mahboob returned to Afghanistan in 2003 and learned English by volunteering at a French NGO specializing in media.

Roya Mahboob enrolled in information and communications technology courses offered for women by the United Nations Development Programme later that year, and enrolled in a bachelor's degree of Computer Science for information and communications technology at Herat University in 2005.

Roya Mahboob spent one semester at the TU Berlin within a scope of a training for computer science lecturers.

Roya Mahboob founded the Afghan Citadel Software Company in 2010 along with two Herat University classmates and an investment of $20,000.

Roya Mahboob employs at least 20 programmers, more than half of which are women.

In 2012, Citadel of New York was founded to develop and promote Examer, an Interactive and Educational Social Networking platform with a Micro Scholarship Payment System, which Roya Mahboob helped to develop.

In 2014, Roya Mahboob joined the advisory board of the international think tank Global Thinkers Forum.

Roya Mahboob established the non-profit organization Digital Citizen Fund in 2012 to improve Afghan women's technological and financial literacy.

Roya Mahboob has received recognition for being a female CEO in a country where women largely do not work outside the home.

Roya Mahboob has received threats for starting and running a business, staffing her company primarily with women, doing business with foreigners, even driving a car.

Roya Mahboob has partnered with Film Annex, an online film distribution platform and Web Television Network, to launch the Afghan Development Project in 2012.