Dr Esraa Khatab, Assistant Professor at the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai

As we celebrate International Women in Engineering Day (INWED), attention is increasingly focused on how to prepare young women not only to participate in engineering but to lead its future. In a world shaped by artificial intelligence, sustainability challenges, and rapid digital transformation, education must go beyond technical instruction. It must cultivate what we can call engineering intelligence, a combination of technical expertise, problem-solving ability, creativity, and leadership confidence.

For young women, this preparation is most effective when education is intentionally designed to inspire, support, and position them as future innovators and decision-makers.

Inspiring Young Women Through Meaningful Learning

Engaging young women in engineering begins with making learning relevant and purposeful. When engineering is connected to real-world challenges, such as improving healthcare systems, designing sustainable cities, or developing climate solutions, it resonates strongly with students who are motivated by impact.

Project-based learning plays a key role here. When young women work on designing smart applications, building prototypes, or solving community challenges, they begin to see themselves as capable engineers contributing to society. Thes experiences move engineering from an abstract concept to a meaningful pathway where their ideas matter.

Initiatives such as the UAE’s “One Million Arab Coders” and international programs like “Girls Who Code” have successfully introduced thousands of young women to coding, AI, and digital innovation. These initiatives are powerful not just because of the skills they teach, but because they create an early sense of belonging in technology-driven environments.

Mentorship: Unlocking Potential and Building Confidence

For young women, mentorship is a transformative element of engineering education. It provides not only guidance but also reassurance, helping students navigate academic and career pathways with clarity and confidence.

Connecting young women with mentors, whether through universities, industry partnerships, or outreach programs, offers them valuable insights into emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and renewable energy. These relationships make career paths more tangible and achievable.

In classroom settings, mentorship can be embedded into learning through project collaborations and industry engagement. When young women receive feedback from

professionals, present their ideas, and engage in real-world problem-solving, they begin to develop both confidence and professional identity.

Mentorship also nurtures leadership. By observing and interacting with experienced professionals, young women gain exposure to decision-making, teamwork, and innovation processes, essential components of future tech leadership.

Expanding Opportunities Through STEM Outreach

STEM outreach initiatives are vital in reaching young women early and sustaining their interest in engineering pathways. Programs that focus on hands-on, creative engagement, such as robotics competitions, coding bootcamps, and innovation labs, are particularly effective in building confidence and curiosity.

These initiatives create safe and encouraging environments where young women can experiment, take risks, and learn collaboratively. Importantly, they shift the narrative from simply learning technology to actively creating it.

Digital platforms have further expanded opportunities for young women in engineering. Virtual labs such as “MIT OpenCourseWare” and interactive simulations (e.g., PhET) allow learners to experiment and build practical skills remotely, with research showing strong gains in engagement and motivation. Online hackathons, including initiatives like the “UAE InnovAIte AI” Hackathon, provide young women with collaborative spaces to design real-world solutions using emerging technologies. At the same time, AI-powered tools such as “Khan Academy’s Khanmigo” offer personalized guidance, helping learners build confidence through continuous, self-paced support.

Together, these platforms create flexible and inclusive pathways that enable young women to actively engage, experiment, and grow within today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape. By introducing young women to emerging technologies early, outreach programs help them build familiarity and confidence in fields that will define the future of work.

Encouraging Young Women to Lead in Emerging Fields

Emerging engineering domains, such as artificial intelligence, smart systems, biotechnology, and sustainable energy, offer significant opportunities for innovation and leadership. Encouraging young women to explore these areas requires intentional effort within education systems.

This can be achieved through:

• Early integration of advanced topics: Introducing AI, data science, and sustainability concepts at foundational levels.
• Interdisciplinary approaches: Encouraging young women to apply engineering skills in healthcare, environmental science, and social innovation.
• Experiential learning: Providing opportunities for internships, research projects, and innovation challenges in emerging fields.

These experiences allow young women to build not only technical expertise but also the confidence to navigate complex, real-world challenges. They begin to see themselves as contributors to cutting-edge developments, rather than observers.

Building Confidence and Leadership Identity

For young women to thrive in engineering, education must also focus on building confidence and leadership skills. This includes creating environments where their voices are heard, their ideas are valued, and their contributions are recognized.

Encouraging young women to lead team projects, present their work, and participate in competitions helps them develop essential soft skills such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.

Representation also plays an important role. Highlighting the achievements of women engineers and innovators, both globally and within local communities, reinforces the message that leadership in engineering is both attainable and expected.

Importantly, leadership development should be embedded into the learning journey. Innovation challenges, entrepreneurship programs, and community-based projects provide platforms for young women to take initiative and drive impact.

Looking Ahead: Empowering Young Women to Shape the Future

The future of engineering will be defined by those who can think creatively, solve complex problems, and lead with vision. Preparing young women for this future is not just about education, it is about empowerment.

By combining meaningful learning experiences, strong mentorship, expanded outreach, and opportunities in emerging technologies, we can create an ecosystem where young women thrive as engineers and leaders.

As we celebrate INWED, the focus is clear: to ensure that young women are equipped not only with skills, but with the confidence and ambition to lead. When this happens, they do more than contribute to technological advancement, they shape it.

Exclusive interview with Uday Shankar Khizepat – Vice President and General Manager for ME

How is WSO2 sailing through in the region amidst the uncertainty?

The Middle East continues to be one of the most dynamic technology markets globally. While there is uncertainty in the broader geopolitical and economic environment, we see that organizations across the region remain committed to their digital transformation programs and continue to invest in the areas of API modernization, application integration, Identity and access management, data connectivity, cloud transformation and AI enablement. This is because digitization is now a business necessity rather than a discretionary investment.

For WSO2, this has translated into continued demand for solutions that help enterprises modernize systems, securely manage digital identities, integrate increasingly complex technology landscapes, and adopt AI responsibly. We are seeing particularly strong interest from government, financial services, telecommunications, and energy sectors, where organizations are focused on improving operational agility while maintaining security, compliance, and resilience.

Any new products / solutions that have been introduced for the region?

One of the most significant developments for us is our vision for the Agentic Enterprise and the introduction of WSO2’s Agentic Enterprise Fabric. Rather than treating AI as a standalone capability or bolt-on feature, we have embedded AI capabilities into the very fabric of our platform.

The Agentic Enterprise Fabric enables organizations to securely connect data, APIs, applications, identities, and AI agents across the enterprise. This creates a foundation where intelligent agents can operate with the right context, governance, and security controls while delivering measurable business outcomes.

The WSO2 Agent Manager is an open platform for the full life-cycle of enterprise grade AI agents. The WSO2 AI gateway helps in governance by monitoring the usage, applying guardrails, optimizing costs & exposing APIs as MCP tools so that AI agents can safely interact. The WSO2 agent ID helps to register, authenticate, authorize and audit AI agents as first class identities.

This approach is resonating strongly in the Middle East, where organizations are moving beyond AI experimentation and looking for scalable, enterprise-grade AI implementations that can be governed and integrated into existing business processes.

What are the key solutions that have kept WSO2 ahead of its other competitors in the region?

Our differentiation comes from helping customers address  key critical challenges simultaneously: APIs, integration, identity, and AI adoption.

Our API management platform helps companies ship, govern and monetize APIs, AI and MCP across any gateway or any cloud. Our integration capabilities enable organizations to connect legacy and modern systems quickly, helping accelerate digital initiatives.  Our identity and access management solutions provide the security and trust layer needed for large-scale digital services. Last but not the least, our Agentic Enterprise Fabric brings AI into the core of the enterprise architecture rather than layering it on top as an afterthought.

All of this combined with our open-source heritage, flexible deployment options, and ability to support sovereign cloud and hybrid environments, gives  customers the freedom to innovate with zero lock-in. This flexibility is critical in the Middle East region, where organizations increasingly prioritize digital sovereignty, data control, and long-term technology independence.

What are your plans for the coming few months in the region?

Our commitment to the growth and development of the Middle East region remains. We have just completed registering our office in KSA which reiterates our focus on deepening our engagement with customers and partners across the GCC and wider Middle East. We are investing in helping organizations move from AI pilots to production-ready deployments, while continuing to support large-scale modernization and digital transformation initiatives.

We also plan to strengthen our partner ecosystem, expand our presence in key markets, and work more closely with organizations pursuing digital sovereignty initiatives. As governments and enterprises accelerate their AI and digital agendas, we see significant opportunities to help them build secure, connected, and intelligent digital platforms for the future.

What’s your anticipated growth for the digital / tech sector in the coming few years?

The outlook remains very positive and we are optimistic. Over the next three to five years, I believe the region will move from digital transformation to intelligent transformation, where AI becomes embedded in core business operations rather than existing as isolated applications. Organizations that successfully combine AI with strong integration, identity, governance, and data foundations will be best positioned to create sustainable competitive advantages.

This shift will create significant opportunities for technology providers, system integrators, and enterprises alike.

Hisense, a leading brand in global consumer electronics and home appliances, inaugurated its new Middle East & Africa regional headquarters in Building 13, Dubai Internet City, the Middle East’s leading tech hub and part of TECOM Group. The newly designed headquarters reflects Hisense’s innovation-driven culture, featuring a contemporary environment built to foster collaboration, creativity, and technological advancement.

The new headquarters reinforces Hisense’s long-term commitment to the Middle East and Africa, establishing a strategic hub to strengthen the company’s growing operations, partnerships, and innovation initiatives across the region. The milestone event brought together distinguished guests including Dubai Internet City’s top management and Hisense’s key partners, distributors, and main retailers across the region.

“The opening of our new office in Dubai Internet City represents our commitment to the UAE market and the broader Middle East region,” said Jason Ou, President at Hisense Middle East & Africa. “With the launch of our new UR9 and UR8 RGB MiniLED Series, we are bringing the most advanced display technology available to consumers here, delivering an unparalleled viewing experience that sets a new benchmark for premium home entertainment.”

“Dubai Internet City is home to a diverse community of global technology companies and more than 31,000 professionals that continue to advance the digital economy in the region and globally,” said Ammar Al Malik, Executive Vice President of Commercial at TECOM Group and Managing Director of Dubai Internet City. “Hisense’s new regional headquarters reflects its long-term commitment to the region and underscores Dubai’s position as a global hub for innovation, in line with the objectives of Dubai Economic Agenda ‘D33’.”

Dubai has been home to Hisense’s regional HQ for many years and continues to play a key role in the company’s growth across the Middle East and Africa. The UAE’s commitment to innovation, supportive business environment, and wealth of opportunities has made it an ideal strategic hub for regional expansion.

The inauguration also served as the platform for Hisense to unveil its most advanced television technology to date: the UR9 and UR8 RGB MiniLED Series. Designed to capture every thrilling moment of live sports and entertainment, the flagship models deliver stunning detail, vibrant colours, and true-to-life picture quality that brings fans closer to the action from their own homes. As an Official Sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26™ and a proud supporter of the first-ever Sensory Inclusive FIFA World Cup™, Hisense is helping create dedicated sensory spaces across all host stadiums, ensuring more people can enjoy the world’s biggest football tournament.

Powered by next-generation MiniLEDs, the technology delivers more accurate and vibrant colours, higher brightness, and deeper contrast, while reducing blue light exposure and optimizing power consumption.

Leading the range, the UR9 Series represents Hisense’s most advanced expression of RGB MiniLED innovation. Delivering what the company calls “Natural and Real Color,” the UR9 achieves authentic and vivid colour reproduction with exceptional brightness and contrast performance. The technology produces more natural skin tones and lifelike imagery, creating visuals that are not only striking but also comfortable for extended everyday viewing.

The UR8 Series extends the benefits of RGB MiniLED technology to a broader audience, offering high-performance displays across screen sizes ranging from 55 to 100 inches. Combining vibrant colour accuracy, impressive brightness, eye-friendly viewing, and energy-efficient performance, the series brings premium large-screen entertainment to more consumers across the region.

At Hisense, the belief in “Innovating a Brighter Life” inspires the company to develop technologies and experiences that make everyday life better and bring people closer to the moments that matter.

Unveiled in 1999, Dubai Internet City has nurtured the digital economy by uniting global leaders through its world-class ecosystem. According to an impact study conducted by the district in partnership with Accenture in February 2025, Dubai Internet City contributed AED 100 billion to Dubai’s GDP in the past 15 years.