Technology is one of those fields that keeps getting more competitive every year, requiring upskilling and talent. Building a company in this environment requires clear focus and the ability to pilot high-stakes rooms where scrutiny often exceeds performance metrics. For some founders, that means bringing perspectives that aren’t always part of the standard playbook. Women leading in tech often navigate these spaces while balancing awareness of how decisions are perceived, not what they achieve. That perspective can shape product design and team culture in ways that sharpen execution and drive innovation.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2024, released last year, showed that women now hold 30%  of technology roles in the UAE, above the global average of 25%. This number is only increasing as women take on headstrong roles in tech. According to reports, the software and app development segment sees a slightly lower share of women globally, around 22%, highlighting deeper gender gaps in coding‑intensive domains; however, that barrier is being broken down.

Christiana Maxion, the founder and CEO of MAXION, an app empowering social connections in the UAE that operates as a hybrid SaaS platform, has been driving positive change in the social connections landscape through its AI-powered systems.

When asked about how she was able to build the business in a challenging app development market, particularly in a sector where women remain significantly underrepresented, as reflected in the figures stated above,

She shared, “I think the framing of the question in today’s society is part of the problem and needs to change. Asking women how they ‘managed’ to do it simply implies by default the expectation that we would not have been able to. I built MAXION the same way any serious founder would: by identifying a real problem, validating a model that worked, and scaling it through technology.” However, she adds that while the approach was no different from that of any business leader, the environment she navigated added unique challenges.

“The difference is that I also had to navigate rooms where I was often the only woman, while being judged on optics before outcomes. That requires an additional layer of awareness that is not always required of others in the room. But it also sharpens you in ways nothing else can,” she added. 

She further explains that the awareness and perspective gained from navigating high-stakes environments also directly informs how the platform is built.

MAXION is a hybrid SaaS platform designed to transform social connections in the UAE, prioritising real-world interaction over endless swiping. Since its launch, it has facilitated thousands of curated, in-person meetings and built a community of over 7,000 members, carefully selected to ensure confirmed positive outcomes. The platform leverages AI to streamline logistics, optimise scheduling, and enhance user experience, while its growth strategy targets high-density expat hubs with similar social dynamics.

With such a platform, privacy-first design and the protection of sensitive emotional and behavioural data are extremely important, as it deals directly with people and their emotions.  Safety issues, such as fear of scams or fake profiles or of being catfished on traditional platforms, often underscore the need for stronger protections and trust‑based design. 

MAXION is leading the way through Christiana’s vision and guidance. As a leader, she brings her business and tech expertise along with her empathic values in building a privacy‑first product.

The app uses advanced protection layers. Commenting on the importance, Christiana shares, “Social connection building platforms handle some of the most intimate data a person can share, including emotional patterns, desires, vulnerability. Most of the industry treats that as fuel for engagement. We treat it as something to protect. MAXION was designed with privacy in mind from day one. We minimise retention, reject invasive profiling, and personalise only what members have explicitly consented to. Our systems are built to suppress harassment, and discretion is non-negotiable.” She adds that female leadership shaped that standard, not as a policy layer, but as the foundation on which the entire product sits.

Today’s conversations about women leaders should be more than just what they have accomplished; they should also highlight their capabilities and drive, as well as their eagerness to develop new skills. Looking ahead, Christiana’s focus is on expanding her own skill set while scaling the business.

“Personally, I am focused on becoming a stronger capital allocator. Building a product is one skill set, but scaling a company sustainably across markets is another entirely. That is the growth edge I am leaning into right now,  financial discipline, governance, and the leadership required to take MAXION from a regional platform to a global one.”

In terms of the business, Christiana’s focus is execution. “We have the thesis. We have the traction. Now it is about operational precision, making every release, every hire, and every partnership move us closer to the outcome we are building toward. The vision is clear. The work is in the detail.”

As AI and digital platforms handle increasingly sensitive personal data, privacy-first design, ethical product decisions, and operational rigour are becoming essential benchmarks. Women in leadership roles are influencing this evolution, bringing perspectives that prioritise safety, transparency, and intentionality in user experience. Across the sector, these values are shaping how technology is built, scaled, and trusted by users globally.

Give to Gain in action: $15,000 in funding to back women-led AV startups.

Alex Kemanes and Dino Drimakis, long-standing leaders in the global AV and technology ecosystem, have announced the launch of the Women in AV & Tech Startup Prize, a global call designed to identify and back early-stage founders building practical, execution-ready solutions for the AV ecosystem and closely related fields. The competition is built as a long-term platform open to early-stage women founders.  Announced during the International Women’s month and supported by, The Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association (AVIXA) Women’s Council, a global community committed to supporting and empowering women in the technology and AV industry.

In 2024, female-only founding teams received 2.3% of the $289 billion invested globally in venture capital around $6.7 billion underscoring the scale of the funding gap this initiative aims to address

“This is about taking action, not just having conversations,” said Alex Kemanes, Partner at Midwich Ignite and Regional Managing Director, MESEA at Midwich Group, who is personally supporting and funding the initiative. “If we want to see more women leading and building in our industry, we have to create practical pathways for them. The Women in AV & Tech Startup Prize is one way we are doing that. At the same time, we are backing founders who can execute, people who understand their market, define real problems, and have a credible path to building sustainable businesses.”

Submissions open 8^th of March 2026. Founders can apply from anywhere in the world, whether they’re involved directly with AV innovations or part of the AV ecosystem. The criteria to be selected is not based on revenue from the business, or a finished product; it’s rather solving a problem, market viability, and intent to build a lasting solution.

To enter, applicants submit a pitch deck (maximum 20 slides) and a short founder video. What matters is not designing polish, but thinking: the problem and who it affects, what’s being built and why it’s better, who the customer is, how the business makes money, and what stage it’s currently at, idea, prototype, pilots, users, revenue.

“This isn’t a pitch-polish contest,” said Dino Drimakis, Director, Strategic Development, MESEA, Midwich Group who is also personally backing the initiative. “We’re looking for clear thinking, real-world problem selection, and credible pathways to market. Fundamentals beat hype.”

The winner will receive a $15,000 cash prize, awarded and announced on 22^nd of April 2026. Any follow-up engagement is at the discretion of the jury and sponsors.

Submissions will be collected via the official competition platform and undergo an initial eligibility and quality review. Shortlisted applications will then be evaluated by an independent jury panel. Judging will focus on problem relevance, solution credibility, market understanding, founder insight, and execution potential.

To maintain the integrity of the program and its participants, the jury reserves the right to withhold the award if no submission meets the required standard. In such cases, feedback may be provided, or the prize may be carried forward to a future edition.

Key dates

• Call for submissions opens: 8^th March 2026
• Submission deadline: 6^th April, 2026
• Winner announcement: 22^nd April, 2026
• To apply: Women in Tech Startup

Delinea, a pioneering provider of solutions for securing human and machine identities through centralized authorization, has completed its acquisition of StrongDM, the universal access management company purpose-built for modern engineering, DevOps, and AI-driven environments.

As enterprises scale agentic AI and automation, privileged access is increasingly required by non-human identities (NHIs) that operate autonomously across hybrid and cloud-native environments, introducing risks that static, credential-based models were never designed to govern. By combining Delinea’s leadership in enterprise privileged access management (PAM) with StrongDM’s just-in-time (JIT) runtime authorization, organizations can discover every identity, reduce risk where it matters, and enforce least-privilege access at the moment of action, making Zero Standing Privilege (ZSP) achievable in practice.

“Standing and hard-coded privileges remain one of the largest sources of risk in modern, AI-driven environments,” said Art Gilliland, CEO at Delinea. “Security teams have historically had to balance between strong identity governance policies and maintaining developer and operational speed. By bringing StrongDM’s runtime authorization capabilities to the Delinea Platform, we’re empowering rapid and secure AI adoption for our customers.”

The combined Delinea and StrongDM platform brings together leading enterprise PAM and runtime authorization into a unified identity security control plane powered by Delinea Iris AI, enabling real-time policy evaluation and governance of privileged actions taken by both human and non-human identities across modern infrastructure.

Together, Delinea and StrongDM deliver:

• Discovery and governance of privileged access for every human and non-human identity across infrastructure, databases, containers, and CI/CD pipelines
• Reduced exposure to credential theft, phishing, and software supply chain attacks by minimizing persistent credentials
• Real-time governance of privileged actions taken by AI agents and other non-human identities through centralized visibility, auditability, and enforcement
  

“The rise of agentic AI and non-human identities is accelerating operational workflows to machine speed, exposing the limits of static privilege models,” said Emanuel Figueroa, Senior Research Analyst at IDC. “By incorporating StrongDM’s JIT runtime capabilities into the Delinea Platform, organizations can extend Zero Trust to the precise moment of action and advance toward ZSP across both traditional and cloud-native environments.”

Raghu Valipireddy, SVP and Chief Information Security Officer at Axos Financial, said: “I’m genuinely excited about the possibilities of a unified platform. Delinea has done an excellent job securing privileged access across traditional infrastructure for nearly a decade at Axos, while StrongDM solved just‑in‑time access in innovative ways for modern database and cloud environments. When Delinea articulated a vision to bring these capabilities together, it immediately resonated with how we operate and where we’re headed. The combined platform will significantly strengthen our security posture by enabling continuous discovery, governance, and real‑time enforcement of least‑privilege access across critical systems and data, which supports our AI initiatives and accelerates our move toward ZSP in alignment with business priorities.”

With this acquisition, Delinea establishes identity as the control plane for modern security, helping to ensure every privileged action taken by a human or machine identity is evaluated and authorized in real time, enabling organizations to eliminate standing privilege across AI-driven environments.