About

Mustafa Sherif
info@mustafasherif.com

Born1993-07-31 (29 years)
Bagdad -Iraq

Works at AFRY
Title Urban Planner
Lives in Stockholm -Sweden

Studied at KTH The Royal Institute of Technology, LTH Lund University & Politecnico di Milano.

Idols Jan Gehl (Architect), Zaha Hadid (Architect), Del Piero (Football player)

Favorite Cities Stockholm, Milano & Baghdad

Hobbies drawing, meeting new people, playing video games, exploring new places, Volunteering in events.

Favorite Sport & Team Football & Juventus Football club

Favorite video game Crash Bandicoot

Favorite TED talk How to Sound smart in your TEDx talk by Will Stephen.

Mustafa Sherif

Urban Planner
Mustafa Sherif, 29 years old, is an urban planner with a focus on people as a starting point for city development. He believes strongly that planning smarter and more livable cities don’t need to be so complicated. Mustafa is currently working at AFRY in Sweden with master planning and community engagement processes with a focus on Child-Friendly Cities.

Podcast Host
In order to contribute to developing smarter and more livable cities for people, he started his own international podcast Urbanistica. It is about the making of smarter and more livable cities for people. The podcast has listeners from 140 countries.

TEDxTalk Co-Coach
Storytelling and communication are a big part of his passion. Mustafa is an active member of TEDx Stockholm team as a content researcher and a co-coach. This means that he together with the team is responsible to find potential speakers with ideas worth spreading on the TEDx stage in Stockholm and also coaching speakers.

Work experiences

Ongoing

Urban Planner. AFRY
PR & Marketing Strategist. AFRY
Founder & Host. Urbanistica Podcast
Executive Assistant. Arkus Foundation

Past

Community Manager. Hack for Earth Foundation
Jury Member. VINNOVA. the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems.
Lecturer. KTH The Royal Institute of technology
Urban Planner. Landskapslaget AB
Urban Planner Internship. Sweco Architect
Urban Planner Internship. Sweco Society
PA Senior Architect. Heidenstamska Arkiektur och Byggnationer AB
Teacher. Tycho Brahe Architecture High school
Librarian. LTH Lund University
Mathematics Tutor. LTH Lund University

Education

Master of Science. MS. Architecture and Urban Design. Politecnico di Milano Exchange
Master’s degree. Master’s program in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design. KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Bachelor of Science. Civil Engineering in Architecture. The Faculty of Engineering at Lund University
Civil Engineering 1 year – Road and Traffic Technology. The Faculty of Engineering at Lund University
Architecture High School. Tycho Brahe Skolan

Volunteer Experience

Ongoing

Ambassador. Open House Architecture Festival Stockholm
Election committee. City Planners Association Stockholm
Co-Coach & Board Member. TEDxTalk Stockholm
Board Member. Urban Design & Planning Program, Berghs School of Communication.
Placemaking Advocate. PlacemakingX
Placemaking Leader. Placemaking Europe Network

Past

Ambassador. H22 Helsingborg Smart City Expo
Chairman. City Planners Association Stockholm
Board Member. City Planners Association Stockholm
Jury Member. Engineering for Humanity Hackathon 2022
Lead Jury Member. Hack for Södertälje Hackathon 2022
Partners Team IFLA. Sveriges Arkitekter
Door Opener. Yrkesdörren
Ambassador. Hack for Earth Foundation
Coach. Changers Hub
Communications Team IFLA. Sveriges Arkitekter
Head of Mentors. Open Hack
Advocate. YSP Young Sustainability Professionals
Operation Team. Erasmus Student Network
Coach. Hack for Sweden
Lecturer. Open-Innovators.org
Agent. UN AGENDA 2020
Guide. Framtidsverket Event
Furniture maker. Woodhilstudios & graffiti Festival
Student Representative. Lund University
Painter. Helsingborg City Mural Art Project
Student Representative. Tycho Brahe school
Assistant. Fridays For Future International
Marks Maker. WWF
Receptionist. Gather Festival
Guide. Open House Architecture Festival
Painter. Stockholm City Mural painting
Graphic Designer. Climate Festival: What is next?
Workshop leader. Stockholm City Mural Painting Project

Organizations

Placemaking Europe
PlacemakingX
TEDx Stockholm

Honors & Awards

2023 100 most influential people/org in Architecture and Design in Sweden by arkitektur, design, inredning byRum
2023 Jane Jacobs Lecture Award by Center of The Living City
2022 Clarence Morberg Award 2022 by Samhällsbyggarna
2022 Arab Architecture Week Honor by ArchiNet
2022 Sustainability Changemaker Award under 35 by PMI Sweden
2021 (Ung och Tung) Young and Successful Award Betonggalan
2021 AFRY Team Player Award (Finalist)
2021 Johan Silfwerbrand Award Betonggalan
2021 the ENABLER of the Year Award by the Swedish Architects Association/Sveriges Arkitekter
2020 Södertälje Hackathon Best Pitch about Smart Cities.
2018 UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agent. Goal 11.
2017 Swedish News Agency (Nyhetsbyrå).
2016 Best Bachelor thesis project Award in Civil Engineering & Architecture.
2013 Winner of the Technical Association Award for the best high school thesis.

Languages

English
Swedish
Arabic

What do the experts say about Mustafa Sherif?

From the heart of Mesopotamia to the heart of Scandinavia

(A short story about Mustafa)

Mustafa was born in the heart of Mesopotamia Baghdad -Iraq 1993. He is the second child in a family of 6 members. His passion for cities and people started already when he was young in Baghdad -Iraq.

He was growing up in this tight and strong relationship with the street, public spaces, and people in Bagdad. For instance, He was getting hit by cars several times, meeting friends outdoors and sitting on the large stairs of buildings’ entrances, attending weddings/funerals in the streets, closing streets for community events, etc. Mustafa always wants to keep this relationship going on and make it more interesting. An urban planner was what he wanted to be, to create cities for people, and to enhance the quality of peoples everyday life.

Mustafa went through very difficult times together with his family in Baghdad -Iraq because of the many terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda and the invisible civil war in Iraq. Mentioned, that he lost all his best friends in different terror attacks in Baghdad. That affected him a lot and made him appreciate the value of every single person he met in his life.

His father moved to Sweden and then Mustafa followed him together with the other family members. They stayed in Helsingborg City in the south of Sweden.

Helsingborg took a big part of Mustafa’s heart and played a big role in the development of his mindset as a young teenager.

His formal “urban planning for people” journey started in 2013 by studying Architecture already in a high school in Helsingborg, Sweden. Mustafa got his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil engineering and architecture from LTH Lund University. The next destination was the Master’s program in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design at The Royal Institute of Technology KTH in Stockholm. He did 7 months of an Exchange program in Politecnico di Milano in Italy to study Architecture and Urban Planning.

In Milano, he developed his mindset and skills in architecture, urban planning, and design. He was traveling to different cities in Italy and in Europe on his own time and budget to explore the cities from cultural, urban planning, and design point of view.

Now he is working as an urban planner in Stockholm at AFRY Urban Planning and Design studio with a focus on the social aspect e.g. meeting people listening to their stories and co-create the values in a city, building long-term relationships with various types of clients. Most of his projects are dialogues with people, placemaking, master planning, and developing methods and strategies to convert “cities for cars” to “cities for people”.

Mustafa loves seeing people active, happy, and full of inspiration, which is why he is doing many many activities after work e.g. He is part of TEDxTalk Stockholm as a speaker Co-coach, and content researcher.

He also started his own podcast in Nov 2019. Urbanistica Podcast is to inspire everyone about The making of smarter and more livable cities for people. The podcast has listeners from 140 countries.