Founder of youth insight agency recognised at Asian women's awards

Anisa Morridadi, founder of Birmingham-based youth insight and engagement agency Beatfreeks, has taken home the Arts and Culture Award at the prestigious Asian Women of Achievement Awards.

The awards, founded by Pinky Lilani CBE DL in 1999, celebrate multicultural Britain and platform Asian women across the UK and across industries, who are making a valuable and important contribution to British life.

Anisa founded national youth insight and engagement agency Beatfreeks in 2013 as a way to bridge the growing divide between young people and institutions.

It started with an experiment - to identify what would happen if you give young people space to talk about their ideas, thoughts & feelings. That space became Poetry Jam, an event which still runs to this day and has been watched online by tens of thousands of people this year alone.

From Google.org and YouTube to Groundwork, Beatfreeks now works with some of the UK 's biggest brands and funders and has given a voice to the thousands of young creatives from across the UK who have passed through its doors. Outside of Beatfreeks, Anisa is also a speaker, consultant, and non-executive director at Clore Leadership.

Anisa said: “The stories in Asian Women of Achievement awards had me crying, laughing, tingling and hungry for more, and winning the Arts and Culture award is a massive honour. To be around incredible women from scientists, to artists, to human rights lawyers, to entrepreneurs - all celebrating each other was an absolute pleasure.