The Ummah’s Moment: Leading the AI Revolution

// Keynote Panel

Location: FIVE-TWO-A

Time: 4:45 PM – 5:15 PM

Moderator: Ramy Noaman

Speakers: Amany Killawy, Sharif Aly, Dr. Waleed Kadous, Junaid Kapadia

Abstract:

The AI revolution is reshaping nations and industries—will the Ummah seize this historic moment? This high-profile discussion calls on Muslim leaders to recognize their responsibility in steering AI for global good, not only through policy and entrepreneurship but also through Islamic Fiqh as our lens into what is right and wrong. The Maqasid, or higher objectives of Shariah, provide a reference point for navigating emerging technologies, while fiqh itself must engage with global expertise to remain relevant to contemporary times. The session will also highlight how the normative “ethics of AI” often diverge from Islamic values—for example, large language models that deliver advice shaped by biased data and corporate fine-tuning. True Muslim leadership in the ethics of AI means presence at every level of the supply chain: from the training data and model design, to the fine-tuning and regulation, to the applications and products that reach society.

Speaker Biographies:

Ramy Noaman — Ramy Noaman is the founder of New York Strategy and Habibi Tech, leading AI implementation for startups, Fortune 500s, and governments. A Harvard alumnus and the world’s youngest negotiator on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, he brings over a decade of expertise in advancing AI strategy, execution, and Muslim tech leadership.

Amany Killawy — Social worker turned social entrepreneur, Amany is the Co-Founder & former COO at LaunchGood.com: A fundraising platform to support Muslims launching good all over the world by helping them raise funds for their projects, campaigns, and creative ideas. Since its inception, LaunchGood has raised over 800 million for over 100,000 projects impacting 130 countries.

Sharif Aly — Sharif Aly is a legal strategist and movement builder working at the intersection of refugee rights, international law, and faith-driven advocacy. As CEO of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), he leads efforts to expand legal protections and systemic change for displaced people worldwide. Previously, as CEO of Islamic Relief USA, he oversaw major humanitarian programs across crisis response, sustainable development, and global policy engagement.

Dr. Waleed Kadous — Dr. Waleed Kadous, PhD (UNSW), Chief Scientist at StockApp, is a leading voice in AI. Former engineering leader at Canva, Anyscale, Uber, and Google, he has also been at the forefront of Islam and AI, including leading the Ansari Project, devoted to Islamic applications of AI. Their flagship project, ansari.chat, answers more than 30,000 questions about Islam every month.

Junaid Kapadia — Junaid Kapadia is a Software Development Manager at Amazon, where he supports and oversees multiple enterprise scale ML and Gen-AI applications. At Amazon, he has led Engineering, Science and Product teams across Alexa, AWS - transitioning from statistical models to deep neural networks and contributing to the launch of internal AWS services and Amazon Verified Access. Prior to Amazon, he held engineering roles in healthcare, cloud-based Wi-Fi startups and IBM, with early career work in software-defined networking and DevOps. Additionally, he has led the engineering team at Yaqeen Research Institute since its inception.