======================================================================== ATTA ARGHANDIWAL — MEDIA KIT Author · Speaker · Humanitarian · Mentor attamoves.com ======================================================================== One accessible plain-text file with biographies for both authors, current book descriptions, interview topics, public appearance links, press asset addresses, and contact information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ATTA ARGHANDIWAL — BIOGRAPHIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION (one sentence) Atta Arghandiwal is an Afghan American author, speaker, humanitarian, and mentor whose work connects memory, dignity, self-sufficiency, and responsible use of new tools. BRIEF (one paragraph) Atta Arghandiwal is an Afghan American author, speaker, humanitarian, and mentor. After leaving Afghanistan and living as a refugee in Germany, he arrived in the United States in December 1981 with basic English and $10. He began as a bank teller and built a 29-year career in banking. His books and talks explore memory, dignity, responsibility, and the practical work of starting again. SHORT (about 100 words) Atta Arghandiwal is an Afghan American author, speaker, humanitarian, and mentor. Born in Kabul, he served in the Afghan Air Force before leaving Afghanistan in August 1980 following the political rupture of the late 1970s and the Soviet invasion. After living as a refugee in Germany, he arrived in the United States in December 1981 with basic English and $10. He began as a bank teller and built a 29-year banking career, rising to Senior Vice President and Regional Manager. His work connects memory, dignity, self-sufficiency, and responsible use of new tools. FULL Atta Arghandiwal is an Afghan American author, speaker, humanitarian, and mentor whose work is rooted in a life rebuilt across countries, languages, and institutions. Born in Kabul, Atta served in the Afghan Air Force and worked in public relations and sales at the Hotel Inter-Continental in Kabul. He left Afghanistan in August 1980 after the political rupture that followed the 1978 coup and the Soviet invasion. After living as a refugee in Germany, he arrived in the United States in December 1981 with basic English and $10. Atta began his American working life as a bank teller. Over the next 29 years, he built a career in banking and rose to Senior Vice President and Regional Manager. That experience—beginning again, learning unfamiliar systems, earning trust, supporting a family, and accepting responsibility—became part of the foundation for his writing and community work. His books include Lost Decency: The Gilded Cages and the Search for Home and The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI: A Field Manual for the Work of Standing Again, co-authored with Sohrab Rasouli. Across memoir, public conversation, and practical guidance, Atta examines Afghanistan, exile, moral memory, work, family stability, self-sufficiency, and the dignity of rebuilding a life. Today, Atta writes and speaks for readers, universities, libraries, cultural institutions, immigrant-serving organizations, and communities seeking a serious conversation about memory, responsibility, and human judgment in a changing world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SOHRAB RASOULI — BIOGRAPHIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION (one sentence) Sohrab Rasouli is an Afghan immigrant, founder of Noura, co-author of The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI, and lead of the AI Self-Sufficiency Lab. BRIEF (one paragraph) Sohrab Rasouli is an Afghan immigrant, AI product builder, founder of Noura, co-author of The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI, and lead of the AI Self-Sufficiency Lab. His work connects three things: his own experience of rebuilding, direct work inside employment services, and hands-on development of practical AI systems. After rebuilding through education and work, he supported refugees and newcomers directly through employment services. That experience showed him that capable people are often blocked not by a lack of ability, but by systems that cannot yet recognize their experience, evidence, or potential. He founded Noura to help workforce organizations and their frontline teams prepare, organize, and verify their work while keeping people in control. SHORT (about 100 words) Sohrab Rasouli is an Afghan immigrant, AI product builder, founder of Noura, and co-author of The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI. His background in education and direct employment support shaped his understanding of how capable people can be blocked by complicated systems. He founded Noura to build supervised AI support for workforce organizations and their frontline teams without replacing human judgment. He also leads the AI Self-Sufficiency Lab, translating the book's principles into practical instruction on privacy, prompting, verification, and useful human-reviewed work. FULL Sohrab Rasouli is an Afghan immigrant, AI product builder, founder of Noura, co-author of The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI: A Field Manual for the Work of Standing Again, and lead of the AI Self-Sufficiency Lab. His work connects his own experience of rebuilding, direct work inside employment services, and hands-on development of practical AI systems. His life has required more than one serious restart across countries, shaping his attention to what happens when a capable person enters a system that cannot yet recognize the whole person. In Afghanistan, he rebuilt through education, teaching, university work, and creating an academy. When he later had to begin again in the United States, he rebuilt through ordinary work before moving into direct employment support for refugees and newcomers. That employment work made one problem impossible to ignore: people are often not short of ability; they are blocked by systems that cannot yet read their experience, evidence, or potential. Sohrab came to AI through this problem, not through hype. He began studying and building with the technology to see whether it could make complicated work more understandable and manageable without taking judgment away from the person or professional responsible for the decision. He founded Noura to carry that principle into practical workforce systems. Noura is a supervised AI system being built for workforce organizations and their frontline teams. Its earliest lessons came from employment support, but its purpose is broader: helping workforce teams prepare, organize, research, draft, verify, and follow through on complex work while preserving evidence, professional judgment, and human responsibility. Sohrab also leads the AI Self-Sufficiency Lab, where participants learn to protect private information, give AI clear instructions, verify what it produces, and create useful work they understand and can take responsibility for. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CURRENT BOOKS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE SELF-SUFFICIENT IMMIGRANT IN THE AGE OF AI A Field Manual for the Work of Standing Again Atta Arghandiwal and Sohrab Rasouli This practical field manual is written for immigrants, refugees, restarting families, and the people who serve beside them. It connects the work of building stability with the realities of an AI-shaped economy. AI is presented as a tool for preparation, comparison, drafting, translation, learning, and organization—not as an authority. The reader remains responsible for privacy, verification, consequential decisions, and the human meaning of the work. Buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H96F1K6Q LOST DECENCY: THE GILDED CAGES AND THE SEARCH FOR HOME Atta Arghandiwal A work of memory, exile, and moral history, Lost Decency connects Afghanistan's political rupture with its human cost. Through family memory, displacement, and the search for home, Atta asks what people carry when a country changes around them—and what dignity and responsibility can preserve after familiar structures are gone. Recognition (use exactly this wording): A 2012 Foreword INDIES finalist in Autobiography & Memoir and a 2013 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award finalist for the Bill Fisher Best First Book—Nonfiction. Buy: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Decency-Gilded-Cages-Search/dp/B0GYRKYNJW/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRESS RELEASES ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AUGUST 2, 2026 — NEW BOOK New Field Manual Connects the Work of Starting Again with Responsible Use of AI The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI connects practical rebuilding with privacy, verification, responsibility, and human judgment. Read online: https://attamoves.com/media/press-releases/self-sufficient-immigrant-age-of-ai/ Download PDF: https://attamoves.com/media-kit/press-releases/attamoves-press-release-self-sufficient-immigrant-age-of-ai.pdf AUGUST 2, 2026 — CURRENT BOOK Lost Decency Offers a First-Person Afghan American Account of Exile, Memory, and the Search for Home Lost Decency connects Afghanistan's political rupture with family memory, displacement, dignity, responsibility, and the search for home. Read online: https://attamoves.com/media/press-releases/lost-decency/ Download PDF: https://attamoves.com/media-kit/press-releases/attamoves-press-release-lost-decency.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERVIEW AND SPEAKING TOPICS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ These four subjects connect Atta's books, lived experience, and public work. Open the Speaking page for the full description, audience fit, and formats. 01. Immigrant Self-Sufficiency in the Age of AI AI can help newcomers translate, compare options, prepare questions, organize information, and draft a first version—but it can also create false confidence, expose private information, and produce convincing errors. Drawing from his lived experience and the new book co-authored with Sohrab Rasouli, Atta explores how immigrants, families, and the people who support them can use new tools without surrendering privacy, responsibility, or human judgment. 02. Afghanistan, Memory, and Moral Loss Atta offers a lived account of Afghanistan before and after political rupture, and of the human consequences that continue long after public attention moves on. He connects national events with family memory, displacement, exile, and the difficult responsibility to tell the truth without turning suffering into spectacle. The conversation invites audiences to consider what history costs ordinary people and what memory asks of those who survive it. 03. Dignity, Work, and Rebuilding a Life Atta arrived in the United States in December 1981 with basic English and $10, began as a bank teller, and built a 29-year banking career that led to Senior Vice President and Regional Manager. This talk is not a promise that every path looks the same. It is an honest account of learning unfamiliar systems, earning trust, accepting responsibility, supporting a family, and preserving dignity while beginning again. 04. From Survival to Responsibility Survival is urgent, but it cannot be the final plan. Atta examines the shift from immediate crisis toward responsibility, structure, family stability, and long-term participation in a community. He speaks honestly about receiving help, learning systems, making difficult choices, and refusing to disappear inside dependence or shame. The conversation centers dignity: not isolation, not perfection, but the ability to take the next responsible step. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PUBLIC APPEARANCES ------------------------------------------------------------------------ These recordings offer a direct preview of Atta's speaking style and public subjects. Each link opens the recording on the platform that published it. C-SPAN — Afghanistan: Past, Present, and Future (Public event) https://bit.ly/3ZZKAzV Commonwealth Club — Ending America's Forever War (Talk) https://bit.ly/3NIO9F2 Commonwealth Club Podcast — HALO Trust Conversation (Podcast) https://bit.ly/4tu32xf YouTube — Daud Siddiqi Interview (Interview) https://bit.ly/3Pf8eDu Facebook Live — Facebook Live — Afghanistan Conversation (Talk) https://bit.ly/3ZXrs6T YouTube — Anisa Shahid Interview (Interview) https://bit.ly/4fjYa7k X — VOA Ashna Clip (Interview) https://bit.ly/4e6Cpqt TikTok — GNR TikTok Interview (Interview) https://bit.ly/4j7iSKm YouTube — Immigrant Success Planning — Launch (Book video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6VYxCj1VyQ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRESS DOWNLOADS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The two press portraits below are approved for download and use in coverage of the books or speaking appearances. The family and archival photographs elsewhere on this site are different: their reuse rights were never recorded, so they are not offered for download. PHOTOGRAPH: Primary press headshot https://attamoves.com/media-kit/downloads/atta-arghandiwal-press-primary.jpg Credit: Photograph courtesy of Atta Arghandiwal. Free to use in coverage of the books or speaking appearances. PHOTOGRAPH: Alternate press headshot https://attamoves.com/media-kit/downloads/atta-arghandiwal-press-alternate.jpg Credit: Photograph courtesy of Atta Arghandiwal. Free to use in coverage of the books or speaking appearances. BOOK COVER: The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI https://attamoves.com/media-kit/downloads/self-sufficient-immigrant-age-of-ai-cover.png BOOK COVER: Lost Decency: The Gilded Cages and the Search for Home https://attamoves.com/media-kit/downloads/lost-decency-gilded-cages-cover.jpg Family and archival photographs elsewhere on the site are not offered for press use because their reuse permissions were not recorded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT THIS KIT DOES NOT CONTAIN ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Family or archival photography, logos, or brand marks - Testimonials, quotations, or endorsements - Fees, availability, or audience numbers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTACT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Primary: atta@attamoves.com Backup: attamoves@gmail.com After you send the email, Atta reviews it personally. Nothing is acknowledged or confirmed automatically. ======================================================================== © 2026 Atta Arghandiwal. All rights reserved. ========================================================================