Rebecca Hui

Rebecca is the founder of Rurban (formerly Roots Studio), a cultural equity platform connecting rural and Indigenous artists to global markets through ethical IP licensing.

For a decade, Rurban has bridged 50 Indigenous communities residing over 350,000 hectares of forested land to global retail; co-creating over 5 million pieces of clothing, films, and other cultural products with Patagonia, Chanel Foundation, Cartier, NOAH, A24, 3.1 Philip Lim, amongst others. Rurban has been described by The Business of Fashion as, "The Antidote to Cultural Appropriation," and TechCrunch as "Shutterstock for cultural art can transform rural communities". Through this work, Rebecca has been recognized as a a Vogue Business 100, Forbes Under 30, Skoll Grantee Partner, Cartier Women's initiative Laureate, an Echoing Green Fellow.

Rebecca is also a cartographer, and worked with communities facing transitions in agriculture, water, and climate. She has built projects utilizing satellite data and AI to equip communities and governments to be more disaster resilient, to understanding the impact of Earth Observation technologies on coral reefs and ocean floor mapping. For 2 years, she devised mapping policy for “The Rurban” with the Government of India and The World Bank to expand water and infrastructure planning for the State of Maharashtra. She started her journey as a Fulbrighter and National Geographic Explorer mapping human-animal coexistence in India.