Seven women ICT executives recognised at Women in Technology Awards 2014

DUBAI, UAE - Jan. 19, 2014 - PRLog -- The first ever, inaugural Women in Technology MEA Awards 2014 was concluded on 15 January at a glittering function at Dusit Thani Dubai, UAE. The event was attended by close to one hundred technology and science women executives from UAE, GCC and the Middle East and Africa region. The WIT Awards 2014 web site, which was set up in October 2013, received close to 75 online nominations over a four a month period. Out of these nominations, 50+ nominations were short listed for deliberations by an eight member jury panel.

The jury panel selected seven winners for the following categories:

Best all round technology executive: Hala Badri, Executive Vice President, Brand & Communications, du

Best entry level technology executive: Benbartaoui Soumaya, Head of department, Regulator Authority for Post and Telecommunication

Best middle level technology executive: Shaden Mar’i, Senior Business Analyst, Telecom Billing Systems, Eskadenia Software Jordan

Best senior level technology executive: Lamya Barrak Al Tabtebai, Deputy GM Corporate Support Dept and Head of IT, Kuwait International Bank

Best technology business start up: Nassima Berrayah, Manager and web developer

Best technology enabler and facilitator: Abeer Dawood Abu Ghaith, Managing Director, StayLinked

Best technology business entrepreneur: Natalya Kaspersky, CEO Infowatch.

Speaking at the event, Meera Kaul, Chairperson of the WIT jury and founder of WIT, founder of Meera Kaul Foundation and founder of Germanium Ventures commented: “Women in Technology MEA is a niche event, which is not really a commercial cause. It is a cause close to my heart and to the hearts of a lot of women who suffer workplace bias as we compete in our careers with men. As women, we are appalled at the fact that we are not encouraged to take up some careers as those are labelled to be for men.” Meera also announced the launch of a fund to help women entrepreneurs in the field of information technology. Details are available at http://www.meerakaul.com/women-in-stem-investment-application.html

“Events like Women in Technology MEA Awards 2014 show that ICT and STEM women executives can be empowered to play a significant role in the industry. Also, the event helps women in planning their career progression and adapting to the challenges of the workplace,” commented Natalya Kaspersky, CEO Infowatch.

The event web site drew significant social media attention and over the last four months nominations came in from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, India, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mexico, Nigeria, Palestine, South Africa, UAE.

The high profile jury team which selected the winners included Aileen Nandi from the US Trade Department; Birgitta Oltersdorf from IBM Global Business Services; Claire Jones from Cisco Middle East, Africa, Russia and CIS; Haritha Ramachandran from Frost & Sullivan; Heather Ramsey from Centre for Women's Leadership Initiatives; Melvina Terazi from SAP MENA; Sherifa Hady from HP Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa; and Trish Tierney from Institute of International Education.

The Women in Technology MEA Summit 2014 was also held in conjunction with Women in Technology MEA Awards 2014. The Summit witnessed a line up of high profile women executive speakers, who voiced their expert opinions on career progression and work place bias in science and technology. The speakers included Adriana Rangel from IDC, Nermeen Hassan from Vivid Life DWC, Angelika Plate from Help AG, Salima Fassil from WalmartLabs, Melvina Tarazi from SAP, Havovi Yazdabadi from Oracle, Sherifa Hady from HP, Benedicte Hennebo from BT and Shaima Ghafoor from Girls in Tech Dubai. Other speakers included Bih Janet, Hanan Kader, Bela Rawal, Miriam Farshoukh and Eman Al Awadhi.

The Women in Technology MEA Awards and Summit 2014 was supported by Meera Kaul Foundation, Germanium Ventures, Optimus Initiative, Momenta, Pavegen Systems, Softwire, Audiowings, Listendeep, Adobe, Divcowest, WD, HP, Cisco, SAP, HP, IBM, Frost & Sullivan, Girls in Tech Dubai, Institute of International Education, Chatsworth Products, Social Media Club, IDC, Emax, Tech Channel MEA and Gulf Today.

For more information contact

Cathylin Layug

+971 55 107 3451

Email: response@womenintechnologymea.com