Everything starts, and keeps going, with people. People who wake up every day with a fire to inspire, to move, to create, to challenge the world with ideas that might seem impossible, foolish, or strange.
People who hold communities together, who push our culture forward, who craft products we love, or write stories that linger in our hearts. And before all of that, it begins with people who remind us how to believe again, the way our younger selves once believed in our own possibilities.
Countless people do remarkable work every single day, even this very moment, but for this year, we’ve chosen to spotlight a few whose efforts haven’t just made an impact; they’ve also, as cliché as it may sound, paved the way for others to follow.
Below is Egyptian Streets’ inaugural list of People of the Year for 2025.
The Egyptian Streets People of the Year is not a popularity list, nor a ranking of power or wealth. It is an editorial reflection on the individuals (and institutions) who helped shape how Egypt looked, felt, and moved through 2025.
Our selections span culture, science, sport, business, humanitarian work, and public life. Some names are widely known; others operate far from the spotlight. What connects them is impact, measured not only in awards or visibility, but in contribution, integrity, and influence.
Egypt is not one story. It is many, unfolding at once. This list is our attempt to capture that complexity, to honour excellence, and to document a year through the people who defined it.
Cultural Guardian of the Year: Khaled El Anany
In November 2025, Khaled El Anany, an Egyptian Egyptologist and former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, was elected as the 11th Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
However, what truly makes El Anany deserving of the title “Cultural Guardian of the Year” is the vision he has brought to it, which embodies a commitment to culture that is alive, inclusive, and for the people.
We selected El Anany not only for this historic achievement but also for the vision and impact he brought to his work. His 2025 UNESCO campaign, “UNESCO for the People,” was a statement about what culture should do in our world today.
In a time when heritage risks being commodified or forgotten, El Anany has positioned culture as a bridge between communities, generations, and nations.
Humanitarian of the Year: Heba Rashed
With many humanitarian organizations operating, especially at a time when crises in the region are intensifying, it is challenging to single out just one humanitarian, as, in truth, meaningful humanitarian work is the result of collective effort.
Yet, as the founder of the Mersal Foundation, Heba Rashed has consistently led the way, prioritizing not only immediate responses to emergencies but also initiatives with lasting, long-term impact.
In 2025, under her leadership, Mersal delivered nearly half a million essential services to vulnerable families, providing medical care, social support, and relief. However, it is the creativity of Rashed’s approach that truly redefines what humanitarian work can be.
Faced with the challenge of mobilizing resources for critical care, she pioneered innovative fundraising strategies, most notably by transforming a simple mobile top-up card into a national phenomenon that secured millions for neonatal care.
What began as a 10‑pound donation ignited an online bidding war that brought together individuals, corporations, and communities in a shared act of generosity. In other instances, Rashed auctioned off personal items, like her own Oxford coffee mug, to raise millions more for urgent medical support in Gaza.
Diaspora Egyptian of the Year: Kareem Rahma
Subway conversations don’t often, and almost never, go that deep. But with Kareem Rahma, they can reach a depth greater than even some university lectures or History Channel documentaries.
As the creator and host of SubwayTakes, Kareem Rahma turned a simple question, “So what’s your take?” into a cultural phenomenon that blends humor, humanity, and media ingenuity.
It has evolved into one of the most talked‑about shows in short‑form media, drawing millions of views and features with names ranging from Cate Blanchett to Zohran Mamdani, mayor-elect of New York City, and even setting the stage for thoughtful voices like Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza to appear in conversation.
What sets Rahma apart is how his work has become a model for centering everyday opinions and capturing the perspectives of ordinary lives. Media does not have to be distant to be impactful; sometimes, it just needs to sit across from us on a moving train.
Actor of the Year: Yasmina El Abd
You cannot say that you do not recognize Yasmina El Abd’s face, even if you didn’t watch a single film or series this year, you most certainly caught a glimpse of her at the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum.
But it is her choice of roles that has made her the year’s most talked-about actress. From the powerful Lam Shamseya (Solar Letter, 2025) to Midterm (2025), El Abd captures the lives of Egyptian and Arab youth navigating pressures, emotional ups and downs, and the search for identity amid real-life challenges.
With every performance, she reflects the struggles, ambitions, and resilience of a generation, proving that her work is as thoughtful as it is compelling.
Screenwriter of the Year: Mariam Naoum
One of the biggest challenges for screenwriters today is finding a way to cut through the noise and tell stories that shine a light on important social issues.
And when we talk about social issues, we are not just referring to widely discussed topics like divorce; we are also talking about the difficult, often hidden struggles that rarely make it to the screen, such as child sexual abuse.
Mariam Naoum, a leading social and feminist screenwriter, has shown the true power of storytelling to raise awareness and foster understanding of people’s often unseen struggles. In Lam Shamseya (Solar Letter, 2025), Naoum does something different, as she focuses on what people hide, showing how these hidden struggles shape their everyday lives.
From exploring therapy to portraying the many ways individuals cope with trauma, she has created a space for families to connect, communicate, and confront difficult truths with honesty and empathy.
Director of the Year: Sarah Goher
With so many standout films this year, choosing just one director was no easy task. In the end, the decision came down to a film built around a simple story: eight-year-old Toha, a young maid who goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure her best friend Nelly, the daughter of her wealthy employer, has the perfect birthday party.
The plot for Happy Birthday (2025) is simple, but its impact is not. Goher provides observations on class divides in modern Cairo, as well as the realities of child labor and exploitation, issues that remain deeply present in Egypt today.
What unfolds around a birthday celebration becomes something far more revealing, which is a portrait of a society where excess and inequality coexist, and where a party can be treated as more valuable than the people working tirelessly to make it happen.
Musician of the Year: Ziad Zaza
You’ve probably heard the TikTok sound “Ana esmy Ziad Zaza” (“My name is Ziad Zaza”), and you may have also spotted him in the recent series Midterm (2025).
In many ways, Ziad Zaza has become one of 2025’s most talked-about musicians. But beyond the hype, he stands out as a rising star of his generation, with the potential to grow into something far bigger than the familiar contours of Egyptian shaabi, pushing the genre past its traditional folk-meets-electro sound.
Ziad Zaza is our Musician of the Year because of how naturally he moves between different sounds and emotions. In Ana Ayesh West Modmnen (I Am Living Next to an Addict, 2025), he uses shaabi to speak honestly about drug addiction and its impact on everyday life. It is direct, unfiltered, and grounded in reality.
On the other hand, BTOAAF LEH (Why Does it Stop, 2025) shows a much softer side of Zaza. The song is calm and reflective, and its music video, shot in a village in Fayoum, keeps things simple and genuine.
Instead of flashy visuals, we see people swimming, laughing, and moving freely in their own space. We chose Ziad Zaza not just because he stood out this year, but because he shows us that music can be honest without being loud, and powerful without being polished.
Author of the Year: Mohamed Samir Nada
Mohamed Samir Nada is slowly becoming one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Arabic literature, and 2025 is the year that confirmed his place on the global stage. This year, he won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), often called the Arabic Booker, for his novel The Prayer of Anxiety (2024), making him the first Egyptian author to receive the honor since 2009.
The novel, published by Tunisian press Masciliana after several Egyptian publishers initially passed on it, was chosen from over a hundred submissions. Set in the fictional Upper Egyptian village of Nag’ Al-Manassi, which translates to “the village of forgetfulness,” the book unfolds through eight character testimonies, each beginning with a nightmare and dreamlike awakening.
Its villagers live in a reality caught between misinformation and fear, believing they remain at war decades after 1967, controlled by a local authority figure who feeds them curated news and maintains the illusion of conflict.
When a mysterious object falls from the sky and illness spreads, the village sheikh invents a new ritual, the “Prayer of Anxiety,” symbolizing desperate attempts to find meaning and solace amid chaos.
Entrepreneurs of the Year: Hussein Wahdan and Farah Osman
“When you give someone visibility, you give them control over their own life and responsibilities,” Farah Osman once told Egyptian Streets in a feature about bluworks, a digital HR platform created for blue-collar workers in Egypt.
Entrepreneurship, in itself, is a celebration of people, because it is people who build, create, and innovate. But Farah Osman and Hussein Wahdan are doing more than building a business. They are building trust; trust between employers and employees, and trust in systems that have long failed to see workers fully. By closing critical data gaps, bluworks addresses issues that have often left employees not only without jobs, but without agency.
To recognize the importance of visibility and free will is to recognize someone’s humanity. This is ultimately what bluworks seeks to do. Beyond managing workflows and payments, the platform is working toward something that many economies struggle to measure, but deeply need: trust.
Scientists of the Year: Dr. Tamer El-Kafrawy and Dr. Shaimaa Abou Zeid
In 2025, Egyptian science marked a historic milestone thanks to the contributions of Dr. Tamer El-Kafrawy and Dr. Shaimaa Abou Zeid, both of Ain Shams University, who were honored with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, one of the most prestigious international scientific awards, often called the “Oscars of Science.”
This prize recognizes their roles in the global effort at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, where the analysis of proton collision data by thousands of scientists has deepened our understanding of the universe’s fundamental forces.
El-Kafrawy’s work spans advanced particle physics research, including contributions to the operation and enhancement of muon detectors within the CMS experiment and data analysis related to the Higgs boson and vector bosons, insights that are central to unlocking some of nature’s deepest mysteries.
Meanwhile, Abou Zeid has become a leading figure in experimental particle physics, serving as Deputy Technical Coordinator for the CMS-GEM detector group at CERN and contributing to the development of cutting-edge detector technologies with hundreds of peer-reviewed publications to her name.
Environmental Champion of the Year: Mina Nedi
Mina Nedi has recently gained recognition in global media for turning what many see as garbage into a force for change. At 25, after graduating with a nursing degree, Mina didn’t follow the expected path of working in a hospital. Instead, he joined his family’s recycling business in Cairo’s Manshiyet Nasr, often known as Garbage City, where he sorts thousands of plastic bottles every day for recycling.
This community handles up to 80 percent of Cairo’s waste, a huge contribution to keeping the city cleaner despite limited formal waste management systems.
However, Mina’s work goes beyond sorting plastics; it is about changing minds and breaking stigma. Manshiyet Nasr has long been viewed negatively due to its rubbish and tough living conditions, but Mina and other young people are reshaping that narrative by showcasing recycling as a purposeful activity. He talks openly with his peers about plastic pollution and climate change, inspiring others to see recycling not just as work, but as real climate action.
Culinary Voice of the Year: Chef Mostafa Seif
Egyptian grandmothers have always had the best recipes, and somehow, even when you follow them word for word, they never taste quite the same. Now imagine enjoying one of those comforting, home-style dishes with one of the world’s greatest wonders in view: the Great Pyramids of Giza.
That is the experience at Khufu’s Restaurant, led by former MasterChef winner Chef Mustafa Seif. As the head chef at Khufu’s, a restaurant that has quickly become a landmark on Cairo’s culinary map, Chef Mostafa Seif has made the restaurant synonymous with what many are calling ‘New Egyptian Cuisine,’ a culinary style rooted in tradition but reimagined with sophistication and creativity.
From fresh takes on koshari to vegetarian offerings and weekend brunches that celebrate local breakfast favorites, the menu tells a story of heritage with new eyes. The restaurant’s breathtaking setting beside the Giza Pyramids and its recent honours, including the Resy One To Watch Award 2025 and a high ranking on the MENA 50 Best Restaurants list, signal not only culinary excellence but cultural pride.
Athlete of the Year: Omar Marmoush
Omar Marmoush has made 2025 a year to remember, not just for Egyptian football fans but for the global game. After a standout season in the Bundesliga with Eintracht Frankfurt, Marmoush earned a high-profile move to Manchester City in January, where he has quickly stamped his mark at one of the world’s elite clubs.
His defining moment came in just his third Premier League start when he scored a stunning first-half hat-trick in Manchester City’s 4–0 win over Newcastle United, a feat he completed in just 14 minutes and that immediately captured the world’s attention.
Para Athlete of the Year: Rehab Ahmed
Rehab Ahmed has long been recognized in Para powerlifting, but 2025 was the year she redefined what resilience and greatness look like on the world stage. At the World Para Powerlifting Championships held in Cairo, Ahmed overcame a significant chest injury that had sidelined her for much of the year to claim her fifth world title, and her first in the women’s up to 61kg category, all on home soil.
In front of a roaring Egyptian crowd at the New Capital Sports City Hall, she lifted an impressive 131 kg to secure the gold, marking a powerful comeback after only four months of training following recovery from injury.
Social Media Creator of the Year: Aly Khalifa
If 2025 taught us anything about internet culture, it is that great food + great personality = unforgettable content. And this is why Aly Khalifa turned Koshary Shop Date into the digital experience everyone couldn’t stop talking about.
With his humor, charm, and genuine love for Egypt’s favorite comfort dish, Aly turned every koshary plate into a moment of joy, connection, and pure scroll-stopping entertainment.
In a world full of digital trends, Aly Khalifa showed us that the best content is the kind that makes you smile and hungry.
Designers of the Year: Dara Hassanein and Dalia Abbas
Egypt is home to many artisans and designers, shaped by an environment that naturally feeds creativity. This year, however, we chose the Cairo-based brand REBELCAIRO, founded by Dara Hassanein and her mother, Dalia Abbas, for the collection that truly stayed with us: AGIBA. Drawing inspiration from the iconic Dalida, as well as the bold colours and prints of the 1970s, the collection felt confident, playful, and full of character.
Since 2018, Dara’s love for scarves grew out of watching her grandmother wear beautiful vintage silk scarves and noticing how her mother would always head straight to the scarf rack in any store. As she once said in an interview, “My love for scarves grew as I watched my grandmother wear the prettiest vintage silk scarves since I was young. My mother, too, would always go directly to the scarf rack in any shop she entered.”
That early fascination turned into a brand, one that has helped scarves come alive with color, patterns, and playful illustrations. Today, many designers are experimenting with scarves in new ways, and Dara, along with her mother, can be credited with being one of the early pioneers of Egypt’s own colorful scarf revolution, showing that even a simple piece of fabric can carry style, personality, and creativity.
Heritage Architect of the Year: Abdelwahed El-Wakil
Mosque architecture is unlike any other form of design. It asks architects to think beyond appearance, considering how a space makes worshippers feel spiritually and how it speaks to its surrounding environment.
For a long time, headlines focused on the “biggest” mosques, but size is no longer the point. Yet what matters just as much is building mosques that are sustainable, thoughtful, and deeply rooted in heritage.
Influenced early on by master architect Hassan Fathy, Abdelwahed El-Wakil chose to build in ways that honour local materials, climate-sensitive design, and craftsmanship rooted in cultural heritage.
This year, he received the Tamayouz Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising a lifetime of work that highlights his contributions to the revival of traditional Islamic architecture. From the celebrated Halawa House in Egypt to mosques across the region and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies in the United Kingdom, El-Wakil’s projects demonstrate that spiritual spaces can still be revived within modern architectural language.
Lifetime Achievement: Heba Handoussa
An economist, researcher, and institution-builder, Heba Handoussa has spent decades influencing public policy while remaining deeply connected to people’s everyday realities. As the founder and managing director of the Egypt Network for Integrated Development (ENID), she has led initiatives that focus on inclusive growth, decent work, and sustainable livelihoods, particularly for women and youth in Upper Egypt.
Through El Nidaa, ENID’s flagship program, she recognized the value of the artistry and skills Egyptian women already hold, from crafts to local knowledge, and understood that what they often lack is not talent, but access. El Nidaa became that bridge, connecting women to markets, visibility, and opportunity.
Across academia, policy circles, and rural communities, Handoussa’s legacy is rooted in the belief that lasting development happens when knowledge meets action, and when people are trusted as partners, not just as beneficiaries.
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