B ased on a true story, Bill Guttentag's rousing drama attests to the resilience of women who dare to dream despite draconian social strictures. The film follows Roya Mahboob (Nikohl Boosheri), a trailblazing coach and businesswoman in Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) who assembles a robotics team of Afghan girls for international competitions. They face the same dangers too; in a country where women are not encouraged or even allowed to pursue higher levels of education, their quest for medals sees opposition from their own families as well as public scorn from conservatives. Rule Breakers is at its most thrilling during the competition sequences, which splice together real-life documentary footage of the events with fictional re-enactments. These spaces are portrayed as a haven that encourages camaraderie rather than competitiveness, and in a world divided by military conflicts and war, they offer a utopiian vision of international collaboration and solidarity.

The courageous story of Afghanistan's first all-girls robotics team is coming to a theater near you. Rule Breakers is based on the true story of The Afghan Girls Robotics Team, who grabbed the world's attention when they were denied member visas by the United States in 2017 while attempting to compete at the First Global Challenge international robotics competition. Fifty three members of Congress signed a petition and President Donald Trump intervened to give the girls travel documents on special humanitarian grounds allowing them to enter the US and compete in the robotics games, according to a New York Times profile. The story of the team's struggle to compete in the robotics competition goes much deeper than their attempts to enter the US. First Global founder Dean Kamen, who is best known for designing the Segway, put together his competitive robotics league as a way to spark interest in science and technology among high schoolers.

From Istanbul to Los Angeles, Dubai to New York and beyond, Asma Shabab--named a 2019 Woman to Watch for her thought leadership on how technology impacts humanity--is exactly that. "Here's to the rule breakers, the rebels and the transformers," Brandberries editor-in-chief Hamza Sarawy, who compiled the list, wrote. Shabab has always been a rebel, which she defines as continuously exploring how to challenge herself. At school, where she excelled in academics and extracurricular activities, she loved finding creative ways to address whatever was happening around her. Today, in her globe-circling career, she defines rule breakers as those who have the guts to question. "A rule breaker is someone who does things differently," she told Industrious from her Dubai home.