Cisco empowers Saudi women to join ICT careers

Cisco Saudi Arabia saw a strong turnout on its annual Girls in ICT Day held at Cisco offices in Riyadh, with young women learning about the technology-related careers of tomorrow.
The recent Girls in ICT Day is an annual day of activities organized by the International Telecommunications Union, to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider careers in the growing field of ICT.
At Cisco Riyadh offices, 27 girls and 18-22 year old women learned from female role models about the vital role that ICT plays in employability, and how the Internet of Everything will create the technology-related jobs of tomorrow. The young women attended the event came from different universities across Riyadh, including King Saud University, Prince Sultan University, Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University, Al Yamamah University, Al-Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, as well as Alfaisal University.
“Saudi Arabia has the high quality of education and supportive entrepreneurial environment that is fuelling women’s participation in the country’s bright ICT future, especially with the country’s telecommunications sector facing a turning point in boosting speeds and unlocking the knowledge-based economy,” said Buthayna Al-Wehaibi, network consulting engineer at Cisco KSA.
The Internet of Everything (IoE) is the networked connection of people, process, data and things, with Cisco predicting 50 billion objects connected to the Internet by 2020. As a result, the IoE is set to create unprecedented disruption across global industries.
Alanoud Al-Hudaib, another network consulting engineer at Cisco who was part of the team managing the event, said: “We discussed different topics during the activity, including the vision of the Internet of Everything, success stories of women working in technology and engineering.”
Rasha Abu Alsaud, guest speaker and VP of services risk and information security at NCB, shared her experience in the IT industry.”