Egyptian businesswoman Hanan Khalil was honored at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit Tuesday with the "Goldman Sachs and Fortune Global Women Leaders Award."
The entrepreneur is the founder, CEO and managing director of Zahraa Trade, an Egyptian pharmaceutical company that imports pharmaceutical products to Egypt at low costs.
The Cairo-based company, which Khalil established in 1994, works as an agent for foreign pharmaceutical suppliers and specializes in the distribution and promotion of affordable oncology medications for the Egyptian Health Ministry and the Egyptian health market.
Khalil therefore took home the award not just for founding and running a successful business but for founding and running a business that plays an active role in helping and bettering the community it is based in.
"I dream of a future when the greatest obstacle my daughters and girls everywhere face is as simple as deciding where to open their next shop," Khalil said when accepting her award in Washington DC.
The chemical engineer-turned-businesswoman is planning to use the grant money to empower young refugees in Egypt by teaching them handicraft skills that can be developed to become a source of income.
"We are planning to give them the space to create, to understand their skills, their talents, to be more encouraged to integrate in the society, to have a sort of income and we are going to monitor what they're going to do and what they're good at," Khalil said, speaking to Medill Washington.
When asked about young women in her home country, Khalil said "they shouldn't give up and they have to fight for their objectives, even if they felt that they are failing, they felt that they face many challenges, they have to continue."
Khalil's involvement with Goldman Sachs started when she joined their "10,000 Women" program to better her business, which is a global initiative that empowers women entrepreneurs by providing them with business and management education, mentoring, networking opportunities and financial support.