Preparing Arab women for the digital future

This initiative is part of the Women at Work programme developed by the British Council with the local support of the Women in IT organisation in Lebanon and Equalitec from the UK.

The participants will take part in a two day networking event on the theme 'Preparing Women for the Digital Future: Crossing Cultural Barriers'.

The Networking Event

As part of the British Council's Women at Work programme, the participating women will represent the voices of their peers in the discussions and debates. These will revolve around emerging technologies and access to resources, career opportunities and gender gap, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship and creating cross-cultural bonds. The discussions will be facilitated and led by prominent speakers from the region in the fields of IT and social and economical development. The organisations participating are; Women in IT, Equalitec and Portia, UNDP, The Lebanese American University, Microsoft, Social Media Exchange.

The aims of the networking event are to build capacity among the participants, create networking opportunities, share experience about good practice in mentoring and profile raising for women in the sector, and put together areas for future collaboration and professional networking between the UK and regional professional organisations.

The participating women are all professionals in the field of Information Technology whether directly through IT management or through working with international organisations with the aim of creating positive social change through IT usage.

The IT professional women will be representing institutions from their representing countries in this networking event namely from; Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco as well as the UK.

"We consider our networking events to be unique in that they bring together people that otherwise would not have the opportunity to meet. These events allow professional women from the United Kingdom and the Middle East to exchange ideas, work-life experiences and cultures which are fundamental to the British Council's work in cultural relations" Caroline Khalaf, Regional Project Manager for Governance, British Council.

The Women at Work Programme

Women at Work is a programme that links women in professions where they are under-represented in the Middle East with their counterparts in the UK. Its purpose is to encourage young women in the region to explore different career options and challenge perceptions and stereotypes of the types of careers that are suitable for women.

The activities in the programme also support the professional development of the women already working in non-typical fields, and in doing so, helps them take their place as equals in the labour market and act as role models.

The programme started in 2007 and to date has involved; exchange visits between professional women in the region and the UK, four networking events, awareness raising and outreach programmes for school and college students, and raising the debate about the role of women in non-traditional careers.

Exchange Visit

In the three days preceding the networking event, women from the UK who hosted an exchange visit with Lebanese women back in February 2008 in turn visit their Lebanese counterparts. The return visit will include a tour of the IT industry in Lebanon and participation in shadowing visits to major organisations such as Women in IT, the Lebanese League for Women in Business, Bader, Lebanese University Faculty of Engineering, the MIT Arab Forum Enterprise, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, Microsoft, OMSAR, Arabia GIS, and Inco Net Data Management

'One of the most important objectives of this exchange program is to learn from the stories of professional women in both the developing as well as the developed world, and pass on these inspiring stories to young females in my country which can act as a beacon of hope that they can be significant contributors to their communities and achieve status in their society.' Nada Khorchid, IT professional