Hiba Zakai is a PhD student at College of Education at DePaul University in the area of Curriculum Studies with an emphasis on Value-Based Education in experiential learning pedagogy through asset-based lens. Her area of interest in research is around youth activism, grass-root initiatives, and asset-based community development in the realm of Global Citizenship Education (GCE). Hiba has participated in the Faculty Institute with the Steans Center and is working towards the ABCD certification with final project of enhancing the course and program she curated, designed, and taught In Pakistan – "Education for Civic Engagement and Social Impact" which had an immersion trip component to the remote-mountainous societies with their own culture and language. The goal of the course is to provide a fusion of Eastern and Western perspective to enhance students' critical thinking and cultural competencies as the 'hidden agenda' for global citizenship education while looking at communities that come together organically, with no-government intervention as case studies. She has collaborated in this field with institutions in Turkey including the Social Impact Lab at KOC University and in Pakistan with Karakorum International University (KIU) in Gilgit-Baltistan and Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). ​