Women In IT

On Thursday, October 30^th, 2014 ACM-W held an event in collaboration with Microsoft Student Partners NUST. This interactive session was all about women in technology.

It began with a welcome and a brief introduction by Azka Nadeem, Chair ACM-W and by thanking all the young men and women that attended. It was stressed upon how we can all count the names of famous men in technology on our fingertips yet even when women outshine them in many areas they are not deemed to be equally good.

The first guest speaker to grace the stage was Rubab Batool who is part of NUST’s School of Social Sciences and Humanities specifically BS in Mass Communication. She is also an MSP from NUST.

Her speech began with giving the topic a Pakistani perspective. She began with explaining the various ways women are discriminated against in the country. There were many horrifying examples to take heed from.  Then we were provided with hope. We were given examples of women that faced an absurd amount of challenges and yet made it through to the top.

Consider this; you are here because you have been supported by your family to strive for further education. Yes, even we face many forms of gender discrimination, but surely, it could not be worse than the women whose dreams to excel have been trodden down upon by the society and who cannot even think of being where you are now. No, compared to them, we are highly privileged. So, the most important thing to keep in mind is, you are far better off than most. Believe in your capabilities and believe in yourself.

After the identification of the problem and the identification of the severity of the problem Rubab stressed that feminism was the solution. That a change in perspective is the first step and most importantly to update our definitions of the word feminism, for it is not a struggle for superiority but a struggle for equality. Feminists do not hate on men. However for the past decade the term has been misused and inappropriately portrayed.

The next speaker was Madeeha Khalid who was applauded for being the MSP in 2010 when Microsoft was first introduced in Pakistan through the HEC. She was the only female then in the entire pool of MSPs from Pakistan. Currently she is working as the Innovation Executive at Telenor Pakistan.

She told us how circumstances are improving for women. She said that at her first job some few years ago she used to be the only woman in the department and now there are at least six girls in the same department. Her current job grants her much industrial experience. Essentially it is to look after the new products under development. She even told us of her role in the development of the Telenor App Store.

In Madeeha’s talk the main focus was on what happens when we graduate and go looking for jobs. She expressed that while we judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, people judge us by what we have done. Hence gathering experience and expertise in your chosen field as early on as possible is crucial. She says you can start freelancing merely into the fourth or fifth semester.

She entertained questions such as “what to do about the stereotype that women are not generally good coders?” and “If you are not that great at programming what else does the IT field offer?” Her answers had hope. She told: Times are changing, have changed and will continue to change. There have been witnessed industries where women are preferred even. Also to the Software Development Life Cycle there are typically six stages: Requirement gathering and analysis, Design, Implementation or coding, Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance. If you feel you are not an expert coder, you can pursue any of these other options.

The best approach when applying for jobs is to focus on purpose. The trend is that software houses that have late sitting hours will generally not hire that many women however houses with greater outsourcing will be much better suited.

She ended her speech with words of encouragement. Telling young women to be more confident of themselves and to challenge their limits. For truly, in creation, in innovation, there are no limits. It should not matter if you are a guy or a girl. It should not. And it is our great hope that it will not.

Report By: Dua Anjum

Event Photographer:

Maham Shahid

Aatrah Rauf

Aayesha Aarif