In spirit of reshaping the idea of women empowerment and leadership through science and technology, IEEE WIE ILS’19 Islamabad, awarded to IEEE WIE PIEAS Affinity Group in collaboration with IEEE WIE Islamabad Section (WIE ISC) in the Asian Pacific – Region 10, was hosted in Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Islamabad on 27th October, 2019 under the theme of “The Broken kind of Beautiful”. Over the past years, this summit has been a success throughout the world in inspiring women to develop leadership qualities, expand their social & professional network and succeed in their professional lives. IEEE WIE ILS’19 Islamabad was no less than another exciting journey full of unique ideas, people and their precious works, that surely helped our rising leaders to shape their future.
With the same determination of making WIE ILS’19 Islamabad the pinnacle of the flourishing international summits, WIE PIEAS AG came up with the very concept of celebrating the unheard voices of struggles, scars and challenges that build up a mountain of success. The event enticed students and young professionals from various academic domains, eager to resonate with and learn from speakers and their stories of professional development. Hence, to provide a platform for exchanging crucial professional career development practices, renowned women leaders from across the country were invited to share their professional journey.
Keeping in view the diverse community of our region, WIE ILS’19 covered a diverse array of sessions including 9 speaker sessions and 3 workshops, focused on Leadership, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship and Emerging/Future Technology. Commenced with a welcoming ceremony, the summit included inspirational talks such as “Living an Extraordinary Life” by Dr. Munazza Yaqoob, “Empowering women through technology” by Quratulain Fatima and “Youth and Leadership” by Ismat Shahjahan. Speakers encompassing the technical domain were, Zartaj Waseem, PSSEC Co-founder, who talked about “Mission to Mars”, Natasha Khan from CERN FESA, who shared her experiences about “Journey towards accelerating science”, Soniya Rudhani, who talked about “Women in tech: Challenges and Opportunities” session and Maryam Aslam from WTM and GDG Islamabad, who hosted the “Google Firebase Workshop”. On a lighter note, the summit also included interactive sessions such as, “Knowing/exploring/unleashing your inner strength” by a Pakistani tri-athlete, Noorena Shams, “From Mountains to Mangroves: Overcoming fear during my travels across Pakistan” by freelance journalist, Rina Saeed Khan, “Google #IamRemarkable Workshop” and “Facilitating Tech-Curriculum Workshop” by WTM, GDG Islamabad and GDG Cloud.
Inevitably, women from all fields and not just the diverse engineering fields united at WIE ILS’19 to form links between different career perspectives and challenges, pitched in their own whirlpool of ideas to make a more positive impact and benefited more wholesomely by embracing differences. More Importantly, WIE ILS’19 Islamabad succeeded in creating a community with a stronger force of individuals who can fight bigger challenges and learn from their failures, avail and create opportunities, identify and bridge gaps, uplift each other and work towards crafting a beautiful Kaleidoscope of uniqueness and abstraction.
Zoha Rashid, Chair IEEE WIE ILS’19 Islamabad, Head Publications – WIE Islamabad Section
