Creatives Lightning Talks

A collaboration between Muppies Seattle, DC, + Chicago, this event is focused on educating on the opportunities in creative industries and providing a spotlight for talented members of our community to share their work.

meet our speakers

Come join us as our incredible speakers talk about their creative journeys and lessons they've learned along the way. We hope this session inspires you to pursue your own creative endeavors and help support the growing creative Muslim community


Fatima Aslam and Zareen Abbasi

Kishmish is a San Francisco-based paper goods and candle company founded by Zareen Abbasi and Fatima Aslam. Launched in 2017, the Kishmish brand mission is rooted in creating nostalgic products that preserve South Asian culture and celebrate identity. Outside Kishmish, Fatima works in Business Recruiting at Stripe and Zareen works in Marketing Operations at Uber - both are Chicago-natives.

Nitasha Syed

Nitasha is a former engineer and a Sr. Product Manager at Rally Health. She is an advisor to early-stage startups (pre-seed/seed) out of the US, Pakistan, India, where she helps startups on product-market fit, user acquisition, retention, and growth. She is also the host of a digital talkshow called Shaam ki Chai where she interviews Pakistani’s cool things over a cup of chai.

Bassam Abdelfattah

Bassam is a film and stage actor who lives in Chicago and has worked with several well-known Chicago theaters as well as The Public Theater in New York City. His television work includes Showtime's The Chi, Amazon's Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, and Fox Television's NeXt. He has also been in several indie films. Bassam recently started his own production company through which he wants to one day tell authentic stories of marginalized people.

Mahrukh Tahir

Mahrukh Tahir, fondly known as MT, is the director of marketing at Style Carousel, a luxury fashion styling and clothing rental service quickly scaling in Hong Kong. Outside of her interests in fashion and sustainability, she is an artist (@mt.creates) and unleashes her creativity by making large-scale contemporary paintings. She has also lived in five countries (and counting)!

Subhaan Ashrafi

When Subhaan is not playing basketball and spending time with his family and new-born child, Subhaan is busy with work! Subhaan has been able to work with many notable Muslim non-profits in the marketing realm as well as starting up his own venture, Sabr: The Calm app for Muslims!

About muppies

Muppies is a global non-profit organization dedicated to empowering and advancing Muslim professionals to be leaders in their careers and communities.

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