Just a few months ago, I stood in a conference room in Las Vegas presenting a paper on electric vehicles. The room was full of engineers, professors and researchers from around the world. As soon as I finished presenting, I went to the lobby to meet my brother, Mubarak, who is a student in California. He went out of his way to meet me and enthusiastically asked, “How did you do? I’m proud of you.” A few hours later my father who was in Berlin called me. He had set his alarm to go off as soon as the conference ended. He asked: “Reem, how did it go? Send me pictures!”
What shocked me the most is that I was the only female in the room. Here at Masdar, it is the total opposite. We have more female Emirati students than Emirati males.
Many of my colleagues and classmates at Masdar are mothers, spending long hours in the Knowledge Centre and laboratory doing research. The support a woman gets from her family is a major driving force to encourage her to pursue a career in science and technology. As women, we need that support to succeed.
Parents should not start supporting their children when they apply to a university; they should start when we are young, because that is the time when we figure out our true passions.
As a child, taking me to Radio Shack was like taking Charlie to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. My parents used to buy me those bulky PDAs, kind of like the 1990s version of iPads. They did not survive long, however. I had a weird hobby of dismantling electronics and creating my own. I recently came across an old journal of mine that I kept when I was around 12 years old. In it I had described what I called the “SC3000” (Special Car 3000). I had imagined a future in which we would be travelling in single enclosed vehicles shaped as eggs. It’s like déjà vu now when I see Masdar’s pod cars, so similar to my childhood vision. The point is, my parents realised my passion, gave me the tools to be creative and gave me freedom to choose what I love.
In the past, a woman would rarely choose a career in engineering because the general belief was that she would end up doing work that was not culturally accepted. Now everything is becoming computerised; even houses can be digitally rendered and printed using 3D printers.
Another example is traffic management. Before traffic signals were introduced, officers would stand and manage roads manually. Now that task is computerised and the work is shifted to traffic control rooms. This makes traffic management more suitable for women because they don’t have to physically be on the road to control traffic.
The UAE is doing a tremendous job providing the support women need to pursue science and technology careers. With the support of their families and the trends in technology development, I believe there will be a number of new exciting jobs for Emirati women.
* Reem Al Junaibi
Reem Al Junaibi is a research assistant and a PhD student at the engineering systems and management programme at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. She is also an Antarctic explorer.
