Iranian Montrealer Mahsa Rezai champions motherhood and AI
Posted December 10, 2025 5:46 pm.
In a world that often tells mothers to wait, Montreal founder of Mamanest Mahsa Rezai and her partner Anne Ouriques are rewriting the story.
Here, motherhood isn’t a pause button, it’s a launch pad. And they don’t do it alone. Mamanest’s impact is powered by a coalition of corporate, academic and non-profit partners who recognize the strategic value of mothers.
“The main problem that moms are facing, no matter if they’re immigrants or Canadian born, is that the job market is not mom inclusive,” said Rezai.
This is not her first rodeo.
“Back in Iran I started Mamanest like three years in Iran we were working on this platform and we developed an application and we were serving moms. This is still up and running in Iran. It’s a charity-based organization helping moms to professionally thrive. I never imagined that I can serve Canadian based moms like even non-immigrants coming to Canada. I thought the opportunities are there for moms, so like they’re already empowered and everything (in Canada), but then I said, ‘no, there are a lot of systematic barriers here again in Canada as well.'”
Ouriques, who arrived in Montreal in June of 2021, serves as the operational manager at Mamanest.
“I came here as a solo mom with two kids with only four suitcases, and then have to do a college and work,” Ouriques shared. “And build another life with two kids and alone. And all the connections I was able to do with Mamanest and I asked helped me to build my career here.”
Rezai, a mom of two, identified what she calls the motherhood penalty.
“They’re not flexible enough, they’re not offering the same benefits,” she said. “When you’re chatting with the generative AI, it is just affirming whatever you’re mentioning, but it is not trained with the good data. So what we believe is that if moms are at the tech table, if moms are in the AI conversations, they are training models and they’re making the future more healthy for their kids.
“We believe that moms have the potential to be they key players in the AI industry because we believe that what AI is missing is really the value orientation. The fact that I could expand you know what I was doing back in Iran to Canada and actually culturally match it to the culture of Canada was really a dream come true for me.”
Rezai is even questioning if extended maternity leave is the best option for moms. “In this fast-paced job market that we have, AI is rapidly changing everything, so even this extended maternity leave for moms is not the best option.”
