Zakia Ringgold

Zakia see's the intersection of Learning and Technology as an opportunity to create the impossible and bridge the digital divide. She is a learning and development pro, live streamer and virtual experience architect with a passion for soap making and digital literacy. Zakia Ringgold is the owner of Natural Soap By Zakia, creator of Live Soap School and Founder of Virtual Experience Design Agency. She teaches people around the world natural skincare formulation and online business technology. Additionally Zakia has authored the New Soap Makers Cookbook series to help new soap makers master the craft in her signature "No-Fluff" style.

For Zakia, magic happened when motherhood collided with life, work and technology. Soap Making started out as a way for her to escape the demands of her 9-5 while exploring her own version of creativity to a live audience on Social Media. What began as a hobby quickly transformed into a business with people from all over the world buying her handmade products. Thanks to the power of social media Natural Soap By Zakia was born with a growing fan base in #SoapNation. She quickly realized that it was so much more than soap, it was education, opportunity, empowerment and most importantly community. After spending several years building online courses and virtual classrooms in the corporate space she decided to leverage those skills to build the world's first Virtual Soap Making School in Live Soap School to teach other's how to start and grow their handmade businesses with product formulation and online business tools. This has placed her on the international stage with her products shipping to over 18 countries and teaching her students to do the same. She recently traveled to Ghana to teach soap making and online business tools brininging her closer to her mission to positively impact 1 million people.

In the midst of the worldwide pandemic Zakia decided to create the first Live Virtual Conference for the skincare industry with speakers and attendees from around the world tuning in for 2 days of live education and virtual networking. Increasingly organizations would reach out for support, guidance and best practices for virtual events and Zakia decided to pivot her services to Virtual Experience Design to offer consulting and production services to offer guidance and best practices.