The Center for Women In Technology for the Arab Region

The so-called digital divide is actually several gaps in one. There is a technological divide – great gaps in infrastructure. There is a content divide. There is a gender divide, with women and girls enjoying less access to information technology than men and boys. This can be true of rich and poor countries alike.

Former - United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan
Statement to the World Summit on the Information Society
Geneva, 10 December 2003

From November 18 - 20, 2008, The Dubai Women's College (DWC) hosted the Middle East Women and Technology Inaugural Leadership Summit 2008. The 3 day conference brought about many women from around the region each with a different experience and background, each as interesting and knowledgable as the one sitting next to her. 

The women in the conference represented an array of NGOs, MNCs, Privately owned companies, Non-profits, Government agencies, and Educational Institutes. The result of this conference an agreement to establish a center for women in the Arab region to empower women through ICT and technology. 

Presently, there are four working groups: Education, Workforce development, Entrepenuership, and Leadership. These groups are working to identify the available gaps in the region and propse plans to close these gaps. At the moment (Phase I), these highly passionate women are working on developing a platform for this center and realizing the strategies of each working group. 

The challenge remains as to how will they tackle such an issue as not only the geographical scope is huge but also the gaps in each country in the Arab region are very different. 

The following links and articles sheds more light on this initiative. Thier next meeting will be in Doha in Mid April, hosted by ICTQATAR. We not only wish this center and the individuals behind it good luck but also hope that thier vision turns into reality.

More info on the first summit

DWC Delegate to the UN

Back Again

I have been away from my blog for a good year due to many changes in my circumstances. However, I am back and will resume blogging about many different things partly due to the encouraging comments that I have gotten from people through my blog and other means.

The scope of the things that I will be covering on this blog will change from personal to things that I find interesting to write about. Hopefully, you will find it interesting as well.

Internet censoship

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in UAE is expected to announce by the end of the year the Internet Penetration Policy which will clarify the Internet content that will be blocked in the country. Currently, the TRA blocks a number of websites which its content "is inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates."

Through this filter many websites have been blocked such as Flickr and the authority is currently looking into blocking social networking websites such as Facebook or MySpace reason being that these website encourage dating! It humors me to think that the people in charge of the TRA seriously believe that the Internet is THE way for people to date, or meet up, forgetting that people dated/met before the Internet was available to the public and continue to do so despite the availability of the Internet.

If you take a look at the TRA's website you will see that one of its organizational objectives is "promoting new technologies; ensuring that the UAE becomes the regional ICT hub". By censoring websites that are not only popular but also change the way people interact, network, and acquire information society is not only being deprived of being exposed to the newest technology available but it will also hinder the TRA's goal of having the UAE to become the regional ICT hub!!!

The other reason why censoring is bad is that it tends to form a slippery slope of restricting freedom. It scares me to think that it will begin with social networking websites and then might continue on to blogs and ultimately a religious police that will be amongst us on the street. There are other reasons why censorship is bad but I would like to direct you to the following article on arabianbusiness as the author Alex McNabb is far more articulate that I will ever be.

Dubai Media City & Geo TV and ARY channel

Dubai Media City (DMC), a member of Dubai Holding, is an economic free zone located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Established around 2001 or 2002, the zone has become a regional hub for media attracting media & news agencies such as CNN, Reuters, BBC world, Bloomberg, and CNBC Arabia amongst others. DMC, provides infrastructure and other incentives for corporation- such as no taxes, 100% ownership, and other support services- to locate in Dubai.

On November 17, DMC shut down two of the channels operating out of the zone (Geo TV and ARY channel) because according to authorities within the city, the TV channels did not observe the UAE's foreign policies with regards to neutrality and non-interference. Although the entertainment components of these channel were later allowed back on air, DMC has been holding talks with both channels regarding their news component.Geo TV has recently announced that its management is planning to move the channel's base to Hong Kong from Dubai following the closure and the losses that it incurred as a result.

How does this impact DMC?

If both of these channels move out DMC, who has organizations on its waiting list due to full capacity, will be able to have other tenants move in. However, there are other consequences to this event. DMC in its corporate video, posted on its website, has one of its business partners talk about how freedom of expression is not only cherished within the city but also encouraged which gives DMC a business advantage given it is in the Middle East.

The question then becomes how are the other business partners with the DMC community thinking/reacting to what happened? How does this impact the decision of other media companies to locate within DMC?

Things that got my attention

NYU Abu Dhabi's campus which will enroll students in Fall of 2010 (http://nyuad.nyu.edu/about/)

AND

Mubadala buying 8% of AMD (http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/la-fi-amd17nov17,1,6234178.story?coll=la-headlines-business-invest)

With the NYU campus in Abu Dhabi it will be interesting to see how the race to attracting the best universities in the world to the Middle East will play. Qatar, for example, has Georgetown and Cornell University. Dubai has Michigan State University, Boston University Dental School, and Harvard International. Abu Dhabi has Sourbone, and NYU. It will be interesting to see which location will attract what university and what program in that university.

It's been two months since my last post.

In those two months I have learned a lot about strategy, became certified with a green belt in six sigma, learned other interesting things,talked to people, and started to suffer from seniorties. There have been also many developements with the Boston Model UN.

In October, my committee co-chair resigned after slacking off for quite somtime. He was replaced by a sophmore who is promising for chairing a committee; however, I am unsure of her leadership skills. I also met the rest of the Boston Model UN staff (http://www.bosmun.org/bosmun.php) and underwent training to understand the procedure of our conference in MIT's campus (to be exact in Sloan building). The conference will take place from Feb 8 to Feb 10 and will be hosted in both MIT with the bigger committees (such as mine, consisting of 85 people) being hosted in the Marriot in Cambridge. Although all of this is exciting, I have a lot of to learn of how things work!! ... Next training will be in about 2 weeks.

Also, during these past two months I have heard a lot about Porter and his views about strategy and his five forces analysis framework. Along with Porter, I have heard a lot about six sigma quality and the quality gurus such as Deming, Juran, Crosby, and Ishikawa and after 36 hours of getting trained in six sigma and statistics I am finally a certified with a green belt in six sigma.

Yesterday, as part of my volunteering with the admission's office, I called a lot of students in NY, NJ, PA, and FL to answer any questions that they may have regarding the university. Although, I left a lot of voice messages and spoke to parents rather than students I managed to get hold of a few students and answer some of their quieries and had two great conversation with two students who were really interested in the university. The experience was an exteremely and fun experience; however, I felt like I was working in a call center or working as a telemarketer. There were about 10 of us calling students in cubicles with a script infront of us, answering the same questions, and saying the exact same things over and over again.

On the horizon, a lot of homework, projects, and finals. I am also in the process of getting involved in volunteering in a local highschool to tutor students.

December 25 I will be going to Abu Dhabi to spend sometime with the family before coming back to Boston for my last semester in college.

PEACE

Back in Boston

It's been two weeks since I've been back in Boston and although am back to the same place with the same people, it feels a little bit different.

A lot of people are missing mostly because they are abroad. Some people have just drifted away even though they seemed so near in the summer. Some people don't have a phone which annoys the heck out of me.

I can't seem to be able to pick up my life from where i left it in May and I think part of the reason is I have somewhat changed in the summer. Recently, I have been missing my family, co-workers, and home a lot.