Rana is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva. As a research scientist at MIT Media Lab Rana spearheaded the applications of facial coding. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Wired, Forbes, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CBS, TIME Magazine, Fortune and Reddit. She was recognised by Entrepreneur as one of the “7 Most Powerful Women to Watch In 2014” and listed on Ad Age’s “40 Under 40,” was inducted into the Women in Engineering Hall of Fame, and is a past recipient of Technology Review’s “Top 35 Innovators Under 35” Award and Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Technology. Rana holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the American University in Cairo and a Ph.D. from the computer laboratory, University of Cambridge. Rana was a speaker at the 2018 Abu Dhabi Ideas Weekend, where she delivered a talk on emotional AI.
Rana is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva. As a research scientist at MIT Media Lab Rana spearheaded the applications of facial coding. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Wired, Forbes, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CBS, TIME Magazine, Fortune and Reddit. She was recognised by Entrepreneur as one of the “7 Most Powerful Women to Watch In 2014” and listed on Ad Age’s “40 Under 40,” was inducted into the Women in Engineering Hall of Fame, and is a past recipient of Technology Review’s “Top 35 Innovators Under 35” Award and Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Technology. Rana holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the American University in Cairo and a Ph.D. from the computer laboratory, University of Cambridge. Rana was a speaker at the 2018 Abu Dhabi Ideas Weekend, where she delivered a talk on emotional AI.

In March 2018, the Abu Dhabi Ideas Weekend welcomed some of the brightest and most interesting minds from the UAE and around the world to discuss four of the most important moonshot challenges facing our planet. The event was inspired by the world-famous Aspen Ideas Festival that has been taking place in Colorado since 2005, as a place for scientists, artists, politicians, business leaders, historians and educators to discuss some of the most fascinating ideas of our time. The 2018 Abu Dhabi Ideas Weekend topics included: “Polarisation: Bridging the gaps”, “Cancer: An end in sight?”, “Artificial Intelligence: Our super-intelligent friend?” and “The Modern Silk Road: A new era of globalisation”.