Ep. 89: Navid Akhtar

Making Sense of Islam

Navid is the Founder and CEO of Alchemiya.com, a video streaming service that showcases the best movies, dramas, docs and lifestyle content about Muslim life, culture, art, history, people, places and so much more. He is an award-winning Producer and Broadcast journalist, with over 25 years of experience in mainstream UK television and radio. During his time at the BBC he worked in both the arts and history departments, and advised senior management on diversity issues. He was responsible for organizing the first ever BBC conference on Muslim audiences and was the development producer for the acclaimed BBC Islam Season, which included the award winning ‘Journey of a Lifetime’ documentary. Other work includes ‘The Sword of the Samurai’ and ‘Ramadan Diaries’. For radio he presented Nusrat was my Elvis, The Black Cube, and A Dutiful Child. He has also worked on a number of key Channel 4 strands including Channel 4 News and Dispatches, and for Independent producers such as Shed Media, SMG, Tiger Aspect, Mentorn, and Chameleon TV. Navid was a Senior Producer on the 2013 Ramadan Season at Channel 4, producing a series of 30 Ramadan reflections and the first ever-Muslim 'Hipster' call to prayer, broadcast on UK television. Navid has served as a judge on the prestigious V&A Jameel Prize for Islamic Art, Sanford St Martins awards for Religious Broadcasting and The Royal Television Society Journalism Awards. He has lectured about the role of the media in the global Muslim economy at the World Halal Forum in Kuala Lumpur, the Global Islamic Economy Summit in Dubai, and advised Turkish Broadcaster TRT on its global content strategy and producer guidelines.