Shawdi was born in Iran with her loving and supportive family, who guarded her against facing gender-based adversities. Ever since immigrating to Canada at the age of 15, she has experienced two vastly different societal states with regards to the way that women were treated. Witnessing these contrasting values inspired her to contribute to the emancipation of voiceless women through defying the female stereotypes and becoming successful in the technology field.
To Shawdi, education has always been a way of empowerment; therefore, she always puts a great emphasis on it. Her passion and enthusiasm for technology drew her towards the world of coding, circuits, physics, and engineering. She has decided to pursue Electrical engineering at the University of British Columbia. Because of her interest in the health care field, she then chose the option of Biomedical, just to get the best of both worlds: medicine and engineering. One of Shawdi’s goals is to improve the health care system of Canada through her knowledge and devotion to technology. Because she believes that intention without action is pointless, she has decided to act and make an impact through research and design. Shawdi and her team started working on a neuroscience project at the University of British Columbia. They are working towards the development of a software app that can diagnose Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).