Busting Tropes Over Tea

Silicon Valley techie and talk-show host Nitasha Syed is out to shatter stereotypes about Pakistanis, armed with a cup of chai

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For Nitasha Syed, a San Francisco-based product manager with a software engineering background, it was the tropes about Pakistani men and women that triggered her to create her talk shows. “Both men and women are boxed,” says the 30-year-old founder of the YouTube channel Shaam Ki Chai. “There’s this stereotype of ‘oppressed women’ and ‘cruel men’ when it comes to Pakistan, and both are unfair descriptions. There’s no third narrative of ‘successful women’ and ‘supportive men’. I wanted to create a new narrative.”

That’s why the Pakistani-Canadian launched her media company Unboxed, where she initially focused on sharing stories of women in STEM fields, and now runs a talk show with both men and women from the Pakistani diaspora based in North America. “These are all brilliant people working in some of the world’s top companies. All of them are working on things they are passionate about, and all of them are committed to giving back to their own community. I am proud to see that,” says Nitasha, who herself started her career working on the FIFA14 team as an analyst.