"An Invitation for Women to Dream BIG" at ICCIT 2016, organized by WIE Affinity Group, IEE
Organizer: Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group, IEEE Bangladesh Section
Venue: North South University, Dhaka
Date: December 20, 2016
Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group, IEEE Bangladesh Section organized a special session "An Invitation for Women to Dream BIG" on 20th December, 2016, the third day of 19th International Conference of Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT) at North South University.
The session was introduced with a short speech by Samantha Lubaba Noor, Chair, WIE, IEEE BD section. She highlighted on the purpose and progress of WIE, BD section from the very beginning of its journey in 2011 to current year including the winning IEEE Region 10 WIE Section Affinity Group award-2016. The session was conducted by Ms. Tanjila Farah, Lecturer, Department of ECE, North South University. Around 33 participants including 15 IEEE members joined the event.
Figure: Participants and speakers at the WIE session of ICCIT 2016.
The whole session was enlightened by the presence of Dr. Shahida Rafique, Professor of Dhaka University and Chairman of Board of Governors of Institute of Science and Technology, National University. The main part of the program started with the technical talk on “Towards High Efficiency Solar Cells: Using Composite Metamaterials” by Dr. Shahida Rafique. She, along with her team, proposed a new structure of solar cells in which the absorption of light incident on the solar cell is expected to improve significantly by the use of composite metamaterials. The fabrication process also started in collaboration with the Computer Laboratory of Ambient and Wearable Systems (CLAWS), University of Alabama.
Figure: Dr. Shaheda Rafique talking about her research to the audience.
The next speaker was Tanzim Faruque Aditi, co-founder of Aus-Bangla Communications Ltd (an IT enabled services company based on Australia-Bangladesh partnership) and former Network Planning Engineer in Grameenphone Ltd. She mentioned that gender discrimination which a girl faces from early age does not only exist in our country, but also is a very common scenario in the western world. She talked about the challenges and hurdles coming to her way in entrepreneurship and also gave some suggestions to the future entrepreneurs who want to come in this field.
Figure: A snapshot of the interactive session conducted by Nuzhat Tasneem, Student Activities Coordinators of WIE, IEEE BDS.
The session proceeded with a panel discussion with audience on challenges and opportunities experienced by women in technology. This part of the program was conducted by Nujhat Tasneem, Student Activities Coordinator, WIE, IEEE BD section. The panel members were Jesin Zakaria, software engineer at Microsoft and Jeniya Tabassum, PhD candidate in Ohio State University. The discussion evolved around encouraging more women into technology. The audience agreed on the same point that to bring the positive change in the current percentage of female engineers, a wind of change is needed and this change can be ensured only by the women through their motivation and determination. Women should not limit their goals within orthodox mindset; rather, they should come out of the imaginary, man-made social barriers with confidence and courage to express their potential to the fullest. As Dr. Shahida Rafique mentioned, “Women can win over any difficulty only by their immense love and emotion and these human qualities differ a woman from man.”
Figure: Sharmin Banu engaging the audience members during her talk
Finally the session ended with motivational talk by Sharmin Banu, leadership coach and former software engineer and lead at Microsoft. Her talk turned into a wonderful interactive session with the audience which put light to the day-to-day hectic work schedule of a professional woman and managing the work loads without even considering those as hectic. Setting priority and facing challenges from both family and workplace took an important part in the overall discussion. After the end of program, there was an arrangement for group photo session and refreshment.
