To document and celebrate the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of the Middle East and its diaspora, telling the stories that mainstream media consistently overlooks.

To become the defining independent media platform for alternative narratives from the MENA region, reclaiming a creative heritage that predates the modern era and proving it is still very much alive.

1) While working with Global Ventures in Dubai, Maria Najjar met founders solving genuinely important problems across the Middle East and Africa, and realized nobody was writing about them in a way that treated them as full human beings rather than statistics or casualties
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2) A spearfisher in Sharjah who built a seafood traceability platform after finding a turtle trapped in plastic was the kind of story that existed everywhere in the region and appeared nowhere in the media.

3) Arabs and Middle Easterners have always been creative and entrepreneurial, Maria argues, but something in the recent past erased that narrative. Alt MENA exists to document the people who are proving it never disappeared.

1) Every time Maria reaches out to a subject, they say yes immediately. People from this part of the world love talking and sharing their journeys, and that enthusiasm is the fuel the platform runs on.

2) The reaction of every subject she covers has been her clearest validation signal, confirming both the need to be covered and the appetite for a platform that takes them seriously.

3) Launching and putting herself out there is the milestone she points to as the most decisive action she has taken so far.