Sultan Sharrief

Sultan Sharrief is a trans-media activist, filmmaker and XR experience designer. His work explores the intersection of digital technologies, social impact and personal growth and enrichment. He has a BA in Film from University of Michigan, an MS in Comparative Media from MIT and is a PhD candidate in Media Arts & Practice at USC. His directorial debut feature film, Bilal’s Stand, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and he has since produced two additional feature films, a documentary, a TV program and four virtual reality apps/experiences. In 2018, he founded the Quasar Lab at MIT, an institutional-hacking research lab that uses disruptive community organizing as a strategy for futurist design. With a custom Sufi design methodology, the lab designs decolonizing prototypes using Augmented and Virtual Reality, live performance, and blockchain. When not making media and organizing, Sharrief enjoys doing absolutely nothing, playing rugby and occasionally visiting the University of Michigan Ice Carving Team, which he founded in 2003.