Shaimaa Lazem is an Associate Research Professor at SRTA-City in Egypt. After earning her PhD from Virginia Tech, she turned her focus to a critical challenge: how to design technology that moves past its Western-centric roots to serve a truly global majority. Shaimaa is a vocal advocate for inclusive tech, using participatory methods and critical frameworks—including decolonial and feminist lenses—to build tools that are genuinely representative. Her research on human-centered AI in Africa is supported by Google Awards for Inclusion Research and AI in (2020, 2021, and 2025) in partnership with colleagues from Namibia and UAE. A 2023 People of ACM honoree and a Leaders-in-Innovation Fellow with the UK Royal Academy of Engineering since 2018, she is dedicated to ensuring that the next generation of technology is grounded in the diverse realities of its users. Her commitment to this mission earned her the 2026 SIGCHI Special Recognition Award, acknowledging her as a primary architect and bridge-builder between the international HCI community and the emerging research ecosystems of the Arab world and Africa. Recognized for her unique role as a bicultural ambassador, Shaimaa serves as a conduit for the Global South—interpreting regional needs for the Global North while mentoring international researchers to foster genuine, reciprocal collaborations. Through her leadership in co-founding ArabHCI and guiding the AfriCHI community, she continues to explore the concept of pluralistic AI, bringing non-Western wisdom and philosophy into the global conversation on our technological future.