Omnia Shawkat is the Co-Founder and Editor in Chief of Andariya. Andariya is an online cultural magazine serving Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, and expanding into East Africa. Andariya creates and curates critical content on arts, culture, women, technology, and social commentary. It was founded on 2015 by Omnia Shawkat and Salma Amin with the vision of developing a leading digital space that promotes and connects Africans within the region and beyond. Andariya’s online work is paired with offline cross-cultural exchanges, trainings, and research projects. Some of the magazine’s recent online campaigns is online hate speech mitigation and covid-19 awareness.

Omnia worked in the environment and development field for six years before starting the platform. She was nominated in the top nine women tech innovators in Africa by IT News and among the top ten leading women in tech in the MENA by OpenLETR.