Keynote Speaker · Concept Artist · Social Entrepreneur · Ethical Tech & AI Advocate

Where technology
meets humanity.

Sanaz Hanke turns human stories into living artworks, fusing action painting, movement, storytelling and emerging technology to spark connection and social change.

Invite Sanaz to your stage → See keynote topics

Portrait of Sanaz Hanke against a concrete wall

“The future does not need less technology. It needs more humanity woven into it.”

TEDx Al Wasl · 2026

Founder, UnitedWeDance Managing Director, smarterbrain.ai TEDx Al Wasl 2026 Educator · Wings of Change

TEDx Al Wasl 2026 UnitedWeDance smarterbrain.ai IUCN Congress 2025 SanazGroup Wings of Change LSE · AI Ethics UN SDGs

A career built where creativity meets impact.

01 / About

Sanaz Hanke

Born in Iran, raised in Germany, and now building from Dubai, Sanaz Hanke has spent her life moving between worlds, turning that in-between into a creative force. Fluent in five languages, she works at the intersection of art, movement, technology, and human potential.

Her path began in agency-side digital design in Cologne and creative leadership in Milan. From there, she spent more than a decade in digital transformation across telecommunications, travel, hospitality, media, healthcare, and SME ecosystems. Along the way, she founded her first venture, SannyMedia, in Europe — later evolving into SanazGroup in the UAE.

That chapter continues through her advisory role with the UIXA team, and it opened the way to the ventures she leads today: UnitedWeDance and smarterbrain.ai. Over time, her curiosity has shifted from what technology can do to what it should do — and how it can serve creativity, dignity, and meaningful change.

Origin: Iran → Germany → UK → Italy → Belgium → Dubai
Languages: Fluent in five
Education: First-class hons, Bradford · AI Ethics, LSE
Focus: Art & technology as catalysts for change

Keynotes & Conversations

Four ideas she brings to the stage.

02 / Speaking

Technology & Humanity

Why the future does not need less technology but more humanity woven into it. Building ethical, human-centred innovation that restores connection.

→

Art as a Catalyst for Social Change

How action painting, movement and cross-media storytelling become tools for advocacy, fundraising and purpose-driven engagement.

→

Belonging, Identity & Movement

Born between worlds: how movement became a language and a family, and why belonging begins long before leadership becomes a title.

→

Conscious Entrepreneurship

Building ventures that blend technology, design and conscious consumerism, turning progress into presence and innovation into something deeply human.

→

03 / Ideas

TEDx Al Wasl eMagazine · 2026

The future does not need less technology. It needs more humanity woven into it.

The Leaders of the Future Will Not Choose Between Technology and Humanity. An essay on belonging, movement and the quiet leadership the world overlooks.

Read the essay →

Cover of the TEDx Al Wasl eMagazine, 2026 Edition

TEDx Al Wasl eMagazine · 2026 Edition Featuring Sanaz’s essay · p. 46

Where the work lives.

04 / Ventures

smarterbrain.ai

Managing Director · AI Assistant Platform

A privacy-first AI venture: your own assistant running on a small server that's yours. Set up in minutes with no technical skills, while passwords and conversations never leave your machine.

UnitedWeDance

Founder · Social Enterprise

A cross-media concept-art project fusing action painting, movement, storytelling and technology, co-creating impact with NGOs and communities, aligned to the UN SDGs.

SanazGroup

Advisor · UIXA Agency

An advisory role under SanazGroup: mentoring UIXA, the young UI/UX studio that carried her client work forward, and guiding its craft, strategy and growth.

Read more → sanazgroup.com ↗ uixa.agency ↗

Wings of Change digital program webpage featuring students in Madagascar learning on laptops

04 · Volunteer

Volunteer Spotlight · Wings of Change

Teaching the first click.

Volunteer · Computer Science Teacher · Madagascar

For the past five years, Sanaz has volunteered as a computer science teacher with Wings of Change, guiding underprivileged young people from their very first contact with a computer toward real digital literacy. Her classes bridge a stubborn knowledge gap, carrying students from zero digital touchpoints to coding, a grounded sense of technology ethics, and a careful first introduction to AI. The goal is never the tool itself, but the confidence to imagine a different future with it.

Read the full story → See her instructor profile ↗

05 / Impact

UnitedWeDance · Stories

We tell the stories of the untold.

Movement turned into visual storytelling: each artwork carries an impact story, and its sale supports the people and communities connected to its creation.

Children from House of Hope in Bali laughing and looking up from a paint-covered canvas

Bali · 2024

Traces of Bali

An artwork asking what traces we leave behind, telling the story of children at House of Hope who transform hardship into resilience through art.

Read the story →

Abu Dhabi · 2025

IUCN Congress 2025

One of only 11 artists chosen worldwide to exhibit at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, where a Māori family performed for UnitedWeDance, collective expression becoming a legacy of cultural pride.

Read the story →

Students of the Wings of Change school in Madagascar learning in an open-air classroom

Madagascar · 2021-2026

Science of Change

The artwork Rumba, dedicated to Wings of Change: its sale helps provide computers and educational materials to a vocational school in Nosy Be, Madagascar.

Read the story →

Explore all twelve impact stories on unitedwe.dance ↗