WIT 2014 Recognises Seven Women ICT Executives

The audience also heard fifteen other high profile women speakers talk about career progression and workplace bias

The first ever, inaugural Women in Technology MEA Awards 2014 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.

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.” Kaul also announced the launch of a fund to help women entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.

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.