Age: 38
Occupation: Founder and CEO, Struggle Is Your Success
As a teenager, Musap “Moose” Abdelhag ran with what he calls the wrong crowd.
“What changed me was going back home,” Abdelhag says. He travelled to Sudan, where his family is from, in 2013, and spent two years meeting with young people across the country. He marvelled at their resilience. “They had no access to clean water. No access to proper education. And they were always smiling,” Abdelhag says. But the young Sudanese he met weren’t simply cheerful; they were successful as entrepreneurs. The fact that they could accomplish so much with so little made Abdelhag think of the potential of young people in Calgary who had, in comparison, so much more.
In 2021, Abdelhag registered Struggle Is Your Success (SIYS) as a Calgary non-profit. The grassroots organization empowers youth — especially BIPOC, newcomers and people who have encountered the justice system — to conceive of and achieve their goals.
“The entrepreneurial journey is a mindset shift using our mentorship program: Dream it. Plan it. Build it,” he says. Abdelhag also runs QA Enterprises, an AI-consultancy firm that designed an app called Mini Techies to teach STEM concepts to children.
In five years, SIYS has delivered five-week training courses and mentorship to more than 650 youth, empowering them to dream, plan and build. SIYS has also raised more than $450,000 in funding since 2023 to expand its programming and supports, and participants have shown measurable outcomes in reduced recidivism and increased confidence.
“I love Calgary so much,” Abdelhag says. “This city has rose me from the concrete.”
Top 40 Under 40 2026
Devin Fisher and Gabrielle Leakey