Cyber Women
It is KINDI initiative to inspire, encourage and empower women towards STEM by discovering new local STEM role models and share inspiring success stories from Qatar. It is a great opportunity to bring Arab women together to network, communicate and share the latest news and knowledge about their field. It is also a great opportunity for woman from academia, industry and research to collaborate and get to know local female leaders in STEM area.
Aligned with Qatar’s National Vision 2030, one of pillars that deals with human development encourages increasing the opportunities and vocational support for Qatari women. Moreover, in the social development pillar, the vision aims to make woman play a significant role in all life aspects, especially through participating in economic and political decision-making. According to statistics from WikiGender, in most Arab countries there are more women than men pursuing university degrees. However, women make up less than half of the students in the STEM areas. Even women (only 43%) who graduate from STEM rarely pursue any related career. According to Nature.com, although in Qatar nearly two-thirds of all university graduates are women, which is a higher rate of enrollment than in the Western countries, the female represent 12% of the workforce in Qatar. Nowadays, this is starting to change by having more female interested in a STEM related career. However, female influential leaders and local role models in the STEM field is missing as the 2017 ranking of 100 of the World's Most Influential Arab Women, according to the Arabian Business, indicates that only 9 women from STEM related careers.
There are many activities under this initiative such as; Stanford Women in Data Science Conference; Qatar-IEEE Women in Engineering and other activities for girls and early-career women.