Egyptian Women in Engineering’s First Forum
IEEE Egypt’s Women in Engineering (WIE) affinity group held its first forum on August 3rd under the title: Innovative Ways to Achieve Work-life Balance. The forum was held as part of the Egyptian Engineering Day at the Cairo International Conference Center. Dr. Hind Hanafy, President of Alexandria University, gave the opening speech for the forum which included prominent women in the fields of science and technology like Prof. Dr. Hadya El Hennawy, Dean of the faculty of Engineering Ain Shams University, and Dr. Nadia El Awady President of World Federation of Science Journalists.The forum covered three main areas; achieving work-life balance, highlighting a few prominent women who have achieved work-life balance, and promoting governmental and non-governmental initiatives which provide a woman friendly work environment.
Another point of focus at the forum was helping companies maintain profitability during the financial crisis by providing a balanced working environment for their employees. Etisalat Egypt and ITWorks both presented their experiences in this field. Also presented was the Ministry of Administrative Development’s Beitak Matktbak, Your Home Your Office, an initiative for working from home. Dr Nevin Darwish Chair of WIE Egypt presented her experience in three women for one job.Over 160 people from the industry, academia and NGOs attended the forum and were greatly impressed by the discussions. Female university students were especially pleased to discuss their concerns regarding the difficulties that face women in scientific fields especially the environment not accepting women in other roles that are equally important as work. WIE Egypt announced an initiative for companies and NGOs to cooperate with the affinity group to organize a competition for the best women friendly working environment in a company in the field of science and technology.
Dr.Hend Hanfi , Prisdent of Alexandria University
