Egyptian Women In Engineering Affinity Group

The well-known Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineer, or the IEEE, founded in 1884 by a group of engineers who recognized the importance of spreading knowledge and technology around the world, geographically divides the world into 10 regions.

Each country is represented by a section supervised by the region it lies in.

Technically, IEEE is divided into 40 technical societies, specialized in computer sciences, communications, electrical, and electronics engineering.

IEEE membership & subscriptions are divided into different categories according to the experience of the member. These categories start from student memberships, through GOLD (graduates of last decade), WIE (Women In Engineering), then senior memberships and then IEEE Fellow members, given to scientists and members who have dedicated their lives for serving their fields.

Worthy mentioning that the IEEE is the World's largest technical professional society that publishes 30% of the world's literature in electrical & electronics engineering and computer science, offers nearly 900 active industry standards, with more than 360,000 members in 174 countries.

The IEEE history in Egypt is back to 50 years ago and it lies in Region 8, which includes Europe sections, Africa, and Middle East. The IEEE Egypt Section directly supervises the IEEE Women In Engineering Affinity Group (referred by WIE later on), launched in July 2008 in the 7th IEEE Egyptian Engineering Day, EED'08, Conference and Expo

More About IEEE.

IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) is the largest international professional organization dedicated to promoting women engineers and scientists. All WIE member activities are mainly based on volunteers, the same as all other IEEE member activities.

The Mission of IEEE WIE is to inspire, engage, encourage, and empower IEEE women worldwide.

IEEE WIE envisions a vibrant community of IEEE women and men innovating the world of tomorrow.

Men are welcomed and encouraged to join WIE

All WIE member activities are mainly based on volunteers, the same as all other IEEE member activities

More About IEEE WIE.

The newly launched WIE Affinity Group in Egypt, has an Egyptian volunteering core team of students, young woman engineers, freelancers, industry professionals, women pioneer/young academic staff

Inheriting same mission & vision of the parent WIE world wide, the WIE in Egypt puts local needs/challenges a woman engineer would address/face within the contemporary Egyptian community.

In comparison to other countries, Egypt doesn't suffer of having females discouraged to learn mathematics, sciences or engineering. However, woman engineers in Egypt are more probable to early retention and giving up their careers for social , psychological or financial reasons.

Role successful models are usually vague or absent in educational/professional environments.

Read about our Activities.

Prof.Dr.Nevin Darwish - IEEE Egypt WIE Chair

Eng. Shaimaa yehia -IEEE Egypt WIE Vice Chair

Eng. Marwa Soudi -IEEE Egypt WIE Treasurer

Eng. Esraa Ali -IEEE Egypt WIE Secretary

Prof.Dr.Nevin Darwish - IEEE Egypt WIE Chair

Chair of Computer Engineering Department- Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University

Born in 52 Egypt, Prof. N. Darwish had her schooling at the X-American College for Girls, and earned two B.Sc. degrees, one in Electronic and Communication Engineering from Cairo University and the other in Mathematics from Ain Shams University. She received her M.Sc. in (Computer) from McGill University, Canada, and PhD (Computer) in 1981 from Cairo University, Egypt. She specializes in Machine Intelligence and has 50 publications on Intelligent Agents, Natural Language Processing and Expert Systems and some other research interests such as Computer Graphics, image and parallel processing. She is currently the Chair of the Computer Engineering Department. Besides her teaching experience in EGYPT, Saudi Arabia and Canada, she acted as PI and joined consultant teams to complete projects in her field of expertise. Her latest activities is being a member of the team in the ongoing (German-French-Egyptian) TEMPUS project to build Cairo University e-learning Center (CUELC). Dr. N. Darwish can speak English, French and some German and has traveled all over Europe besides, USA, Japan, Singapore and Australia.

Eng. Shaimaa yehia - IEEE Egypt WIE Vice Chair

Embedded Software Engineer , IBM - Egypt

Shaimaa is an electronics and telecommunications engineer as of 2003. She was graduated in Cairo University and got her VLSI diploma from the iTi by 2004. Since 2005 up to date she has been working in IBM-Egypt as an embedded software engineer.

As an IEEE member, She was present at the Egyptian Engineering Day or the EED organized by the IEEE Egypt GOLD since 2003 till 2007 in different positions starting a Volunteer, ending in EED Vice-Chairman and passing by Industry Relations, Press Relations, Public Relations and Marketing positions. She has also participated in the Made In Egypt or the MIE competitions initiations in 2005, member of MIE advisory board by 2006, shared in the Made in Arabia or the MIA finals preparations in 2007 as a joint project between ASTF and GOLD, shared in organizing "The annual Egyptian GOLD Dinner" or the EGD for the years 2006 and 2007. She has also been elected as the GOLD Secretary through the years 2007& 2008.

Paying more conscience towards the female engineers in Egypt, Shaimaa has decided to participate in establishing the IEEE Women In Engineering affinity group in Egypt in 2008, in hope to help women engineers realize their opportunities of contribution to the Engineering Community in Egypt in a way that maintains their work-life balance, provides them with professional mentorship and facilitates networking.

Shaimaa is currently serving as the IEEE WIE Coordinator for Region 8 which includes Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Eng. Marwa Soudi - IEEE Egypt WIE Treasurer

Researcher - Faculty Of Engineering, Ainshams University

Engineer Marwa Soudi is currently working in various projects. She is a team member in optics and lasers center , Ainshams University ,while doing her master of science in "high power laser propagation" in Alexandria University. She is a cofounder and the treasurer of IEEE Egypt Women In Engineering affinity group, and a member of Jeal Alamal NGO cultures dialog committee where she meets scholars from around the world to discuss different cultures . As an entrepreneur she created curriculums for kids through her curriculum kids learn ethics and morals through electronic circuits design currently she is establishing a centre where she will give her courses.

In 2006 Marwa was graduated from faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University after her graduation she worked in IEEE Egypt as a University coordinator then Tools Committee moderator in Made In Egypt competition and a mentor in future city competition.Also she was an executive director in Jeal Alamal NGO and research specialist in Library of Alexandria Center of special studies and projects. Marwa also is a member of business fights poverty network and she is corporate social responsibility certified from World Bank.

Marwa is an enthusiastic person who wants to improve women's life in the region specially those who work in technical fields, improve research and development in the Arab world , reduce poverty through business and science while raising a new generation of leaders and scientists.

Eng. Esraa Ali - IEEE Egypt WIE Secretary

Research Assistant - Center for Informatics Science (CIS), Nile University

In 2006, Esraa was graduated in Computer science department, faculty of Computers and Information Helwan University, after that she worked as a software developer in Asset technology group, and because of her research interest she joined Nile University in 2009 as a research assistant, where she is currently pursuing her master's degree in software engineering program.

As a volunteer, in addition to her position as a Egyptian WIE secretary; she is currently volunteering in IEEE GOLD Egypt Section as a moderator of university coordinators in Made In Egypt competition. She was moderating 26 coordinators to serve more than 100 MIE team from different Egyptian universities.

4 years ago; she was a visitor in the 4th Egyptian engineering day we was in contact for making seminars about IEEE in her faculty then and joined Made In Egypt competition in the same year, after her graduation she joined IEEE GOLD as a volunteer in the competition, she was the secretary, moderator of university coordinators and participated in judgment committee, she also went back to her faculty to start an IEEE student branch that did many activities for students, this year she is the mentor of the student branch, in addition to that Esraa helped and supported other student branches in starting up, a year ago she also joined a team of motivated young women engineers in establishing Women In Engineering Affinity group in Egypt that was launched in the Egyptian Engineering Day.