Shrouk El-Attar

Shrouk El-Attar is a multi-award-winning electronics engineering consultant and PCB design expert specialising in Class II medical electronics, wearables, and FemTech. Named one of the BBC's 100 Most Influential Women and the Institution of Engineering and Technology's Young Woman Engineer of the Year, she has collaborated on groundbreaking projects including designing radiation-tolerant PCBs for NASA and ESA's Artemis Mission and leading circuit design for the OpenVent emergency ventilator initiative. Through her consultancy and advocacy work, she empowers organisations to embrace diversity in STEM whilst equipping audiences with practical insights on refugee rights, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and engineering innovation that drive meaningful cultural and technical change.

When Shrouk El-Attar arrived in the United Kingdom as a teenage refugee from Egypt in 2007, she faced a system that denied asylum seekers access to university education whilst simultaneously forbidding them to work. Undeterred by policies that treated her as an international student subject to prohibitive fees, she became a STEM Ambassador in 2011 and forged a path that would lead to collaboration with NASA and the European Space Agency on the Artemis Mission, designing radiation-tolerant PCBs for humanity's return to the moon. Her journey from a young person two years ahead of her peers academically in Egypt to a multi-award-winning electronics engineering consultant exemplifies the resilience required to transform systemic barriers into platforms for advocacy and innovation.

As Founder and Lead Electronics Engineering Consultant at Shrouk El-Attar Consultancy, she specialises in Class II medical electronics, wearables, and FemTech, translating complex technical challenges into commercial products. Her expertise spans nearly a decade across diverse engineering roles, from medical engineering research to IoT application development and diversity leadership. During the COVID-19 crisis, she joined the OpenVent team as part of the Helpful Engineering initiative, leading circuit design for an open-source emergency ventilator aimed at the developing world, where she recruited and trained engineers whilst designing FPGA circuits and PCB layouts. Her technical excellence has earned recognition from the Institution of Engineering and Technology, which named her Young Woman Engineer of the Year in 2021, and the Women's Engineering Society Prize. Beyond her consultancy work, she founded the Shrouk El-Attar Trust, which has provided food and shelter to LGBT+ refugees during the pandemic, funded legal defence for queer Arabs facing discrimination, and achieved a groundbreaking milestone: securing Egypt's first ever legal gender recognition for a transgender woman.

Shrouk addresses audiences at major platforms including the Houses of Parliament and TEDx events, speaking alongside influential figures such as Malala Yousafzai and Nicola Sturgeon about diversity in STEM, refugee rights, and LGBT+ inclusion. Her activism extends beyond the podium through her belly dancing performance "Dancing Queer", which raises funds for legal defence and relocation support for LGBT+ people persecuted in Egypt. Recognised by the BBC as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in the World in 2018 and by UNHCR as Young Woman of the Year for her refugee rights advocacy, she equips organisations with practical strategies for fostering inclusive cultures whilst challenging audiences to recognise how engineering innovation and human rights advocacy intersect. Her presentations deliver tangible frameworks for building diverse teams, understanding the refugee experience, and creating workplace environments where marginalised communities can thrive, ensuring audiences leave with actionable insights that drive both cultural transformation and technical excellence.