A Muslim-Specific Streaming Service with Mir Ali

07/28/21 • 34 min

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This week we are joined by Executive Vice President Mir Ali of USHUB TV, a forthcoming streaming service explicitly for Muslim content in the United States.

Growing up in the bubble of Southern California, Mir interacted with his predominantly non-Muslim community the only way he knew how—by showing that he was a friendly, typical, hard-working American first, then revealing his full identity once he’d been accepted. Like most all of our guests, it took effort to maintain his identit(ies) in these disparate circles. Though his passive approach may have successfully changed people’s mindsets about Muslims at the time, he’s now much more proactive.

Tired of our mainstream media “really just messing up Muslim narratives,” Mir decided to take on a side hustle. What started as an idea for an American-based Muslim news station has now morphed into a full-fledged streaming channel delivering the varied, rich, and diverse stories that exist within the Muslim world. Not only will the channel, named USHUB TV, broach Muslim-centered topics; it will also feature work by Muslim directors, producers, and writers across the world. Mir explains the name, which is from the Arabic word aishab meaning friends and companions, and says it’s often butchered; Asad and Rifelion relate. Launching this fall, USHUB will stream Islamic news, TV series, documentaries, and even original content, by and large in English and from a culturally Muslim standpoint over religious. His goal, Mir says, is to provide really relatable and accurate portrayals, something he didn’t grow up with.

Started by Gen Z and millennial founders, USHUB now comprises a team with unique talents, from tech to business to content creation, and a shared commitment to setting the record straight. We learn how Mir channeled his finance and real estate backgrounds into this new venture, and he provides advice about relationship building and how to create a phenomenal team. The motivation behind the project and the impetus for starting it now are discussed. He touches on the gravity of Muslims being favorably regarded in our country. And explains why he didn’t make a fellow Muslim friend until age 25.

Subscribe to USHUB this fall to see their full line of content, including the films Valley of Saints, Bilal: A New Breed of Hero, The Drone and the Kid, and Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf.

See previews, announcements, and their final launch date by following them on Instagram @ushub.tv and Twitter @ushubtv. And see what Mir is up to @mrmirali.

American Muslim Project is a production of Rifelion, LLC.

Writer and Researcher: Lindsy Gamble

Show Edited by Mark Annotto and Asad Butt

Music by Simon Hutchinson

Hosted by Asad Butt

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week we are joined by Executive Vice President Mir Ali of USHUB TV, a forthcoming streaming service explicitly for Muslim content in the United States.

Subscribe to USHUB this fall to see their full line of content, including the films Valley of Saints, Bilal: A New Breed of Hero, The Drone and the Kid, and Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf.

See previews, announcements, and their final launch date by following them on Instagram @ushub.tv and Twitter @ushubtv. And see what Mir is up to @mrmirali.

American Muslim Project is a production of Rifelion, LLC.

Writer and Researcher: Lindsy Gamble

Show Edited by Mark Annotto and Asad Butt

Music by Simon Hutchinson

Hosted by Asad Butt

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Previous Episode

Navigating Entrepreneurship with Afreen Allam

This week we invite founder and CEO of SiNON Therapeutics, Afreen Allam, to discuss the business world and her biotech start-up that's designing one pivotal particle.

At 17, Afreen found herself publishing her first DNA sequence, and at 20, applying for her first patent—no big deal. We talk about how her passion was rooted in her 7.5-year stint as a Duke Cancer Center volunteer, which was alternately depressing and motivating. Her father permitted her to study abroad as a premed undergrad with three very specific conditions, and it was then that the nanoparticle for drug delivery was developed.

While she loved the field of medicine, she felt she could make a bigger impact going into research, and thus ditched her (parents’) med school plans for business school. And that’s how her company SiNON got started. Currently they’re continuing the work on the nanoparticle that began when she studied abroad. She fills us in on a little stat—that only 2% of currently available drugs can pass through the blood-brain barrier (and schools us on just what the blood-brain barrier is). Meaning a targeted delivery tool to carry drugs from point A to B would be game-changing for neurological diseases. This could reduce dosing and side effects while improving efficacy, and be less damaging and more targeted than chemo for brain tumors, etc. The technology is in preclinical testing as SiNON raises money, hoping to license their technology to other pharmaceutical companies perhaps in late 2022.

Asad and Afreen swap start-up stories. We touch on what it’s like being a double minority in the business and biotech worlds, and how it’s especially difficult to prove your point when you can’t raise the money to prove your point. She mentions the importance of connections, and how the Muslim community is lacking. Anecdotes of fellow students who’d “never seen a Muslim in their life other than Fox News,” a reproachful campus preacher, and a legit inquiry about her making bombs are shared. We end with inspiration for future female entrepreneurs and the source of her own.

Learn more about SiNON Therapeutics' patented nanoparticle, the Carbon Dot, which looks to change the face of neurological diseases profoundly. And keep up with the latest news from Afreen @Afreen_Allam and the company @SiNONTP or @sinon_therapeutics.

American Muslim Project is a production of Rifelion, LLC.

Writer and Researcher: Lindsy Gamble

Show Edited by Mark Annotto and Asad Butt

Music by Simon Hutchinson

Hosted by Asad Butt

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Next Episode

Changing the Disability Narrative with Sara Minkara

Sara Minkara shares her remarkable journey a champion for disability inclusion.

Imagine that the first time you meet someone, you’re in total darkness. Would you be more comfortable expressing yourself? Now turn the lights back on and think of a moment you’ve disempowered someone, intentionally or not. Learn why by asking yourself what identities you focus on when interacting and how you see your own self. These are the types of scenarios we discuss this week with Sara.

A troublemaker intentionally disrupting the status quo, Sara is an advocate, entrepreneur, and educator who went blind at age seven. She is also a Muslim woman, meaning the assumptions people make about her are triple-fold—that she’s oppressed, suffering, and uneducated, for instance, when in reality she is bold, proud, and resilient. Sara has reached the point where she is candidly bringing her main identities forward to start a dialogue and decrease misunderstandings. She notes the blessing in not seeing people judging her that’s made her completely comfortable in her own skin.

Thanks to her her faith, smarts, chutzpah, and the confidence instilled by her parents, Sara has founded two organizations. Her global nonprofit Empowerment Through Integration provides critical life-skills training to children with disabilities, who are often shunned and assumed to have no value. What started as an inclusive summer camp in Lebanon evolved into a mission to change the disability narrative on all fronts, taking the burden off parents and kids alone. The second, Sara Minkara, LLC, is a consultancy firm offering courses, workshops in the dark, and executive coaching to promote authentic leadership/culture by embracing disability and inclusion, the idea being that our true selves breed greater benefits for all.

Sara states the startling statistic that one in five Americans has a disability (visible and invisible). We talk Lebanon versus U.S. stigmas, and how it’s not just ignorance but a mindset; examples involve COVID and apps. Treating those with disabilities as an afterthought means businesses here often miss out on 20% more potential customers, while society loses 20% more valuable contributing members. We consider how inclusion should merely be the baseline, and how to define value.

Follow Sara and her companies on Twitter @sarasminkara and @ETIvision and Instagram @sarasminkara and @eti.vision. Watch the documentary she recommends, Crip Camp, and read our associated blog post on Rifelion. We acknowledge that we found 14 accessibility errors on the American Muslim Project website since Sara’s interview and are in the process of fixing them. You can and should test your own site’s accessibility here: https://www.deque.com/free-accessibility-test.

American Muslim Project is a production of Rifelion, LLC.

Writer and Researcher: Lindsy Gamble

Show Edited by Mark Annotto and Asad Butt

Music by Simon Hutchinson

Hosted by Asad Butt

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices