Webinar for the International Women’s Day: DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality
7 March 2023 – 11h – 13h CET. A gender-responsive approach to innovation, technology and digital education can facilitate a full social and economic inclusion of women and girls. In order to celebrate the International Women’s Day of 2023 which is also the EU Year of Skills, the UfM will organize an online event on March 7 to discuss about concrete solutions and good practice to ensure full access to innovation and technology for women and girls in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
The event will also promote the upcoming UfM-UNIDO Women Business Forum 2023 on Women in Industry and Innovation, which will take place on 6-7 June 2023 In Tunisia.
The event aims to raise awareness on the gendered impacts of innovation and technology, as well as on the interventions that are needed to address them. More specifically, the event will offer the opportunity to have an exchange on :
– How to ensure that we leave no-one behind from the digital transformation, looking at the future of work in the digital economy and the under-representation of women in key emerging technological sectors.
– How to create a gender-transformative innovation ecosystem, by not only attracting, but also retaining and promoting women in STEM careers.
– How to ensure that technology and innovation responses to the needs of women and girls are inclusive and accessible, including in sectors that are relevant to the SDGs – for instance digital technologies to support financial inclusion for women, innovation in the context of agriculture, among many others.
– Recommendations on how to better mainstream gender in digital policies and investments – both public and private
Please register below to join the webinar!
Registration link
Biographies of speakers
Neila Amara, keynote speaker
Neila Amara holds a Ph.D. in economics from Paris Dauphine University (France). She first embraced an academic carrier before devoting herself full-time to her work as a Technical Assistance & Program Development Specialist with a specific focus on women and youth economic empowerment and private sector development. She is work currently as an International Project Management Expert at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), coordinating inter alia the implementation of phase II of the project “Promoting women’s empowerment for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development in the Middle-East and North-Africa region” labelled by The Union for the Mediterranean and implemented by UNIDO jointly with FAO and UN Women. In this framework, she has piloted a series of studies on women entrepreneurship in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, State of Palestine and Tunisia, leading to a deep knowledge of their situation and challenges across the region, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
Prof Anastasia Zabaniotou
Anastasia Zabaniotou is full professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Engineering School, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She holds a PhD and Master from Ecole Centrale de Paris, France.
She worked at the European Commission in Brussels, at the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and continues to work as an expert.
She is the elect President of the Mediterranean Engineering and Management Schools Network (RMEIM) of the Ecole Centrale Marseille, France and represents the Aristotle University at the Top International Managers in Engineering Network (T.I.M.E) of the Ecole CentraleSupélec, Paris, France.
She chairs biomass and bioenergy at the International Renewable Energy Network and Conference (WREN/WREC) and is a founding member of the Chinese Bioenergy and Environment Network (BEE-RCN). Her research and innovation activities concern Bioenergy, Circular Economy, Sustainability and Resilience to the Risks of Climate Change and Gender Equality in Education and Sustainable Development. She has been involved in activities related to Science and Society and International Engineering Education. She has published 170 scientific papers, presented at 400 conferences and workshops, and visited 55 universities worldwide. She is included in the list of the TOP 2% most cited scientists globally, published by Stanford University.
She is member of the Gender Equality Committee of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki that developed the Gender Equality Plan for Aristotle University, founding member of the ‘Gender Equality and Sustainable Development’ committee of the Engineering School, member of the Greek Government’s Center for Women’s Innovation (GIL4W) and the leader of the Social Lab at the Mediterranean Engineering and Management Schools Network (RMEIM) where she implemented the EU HORIZON2020 TARGET project objectives for ‘Taking a Reflexive Transformation approach to Gender Equality for Institutions Transformation‘.
Zohra Slim
Zohra Slim is InstaDeep’s Chief Web Officer. Daughter of a diplomat, she is a polyglot and has lived in 4 countries before she was 18, which gives her unique insight on people and cultures. She is completely self-taught with in-depth knowledge of software and system integrations. In addition, she possesses a unique drive which, combined with her second-to-none people management skills, ensures projects are delivered to excellence and on time. After leading a team of developers in India, Zohra co-founded InstaDeep in 2014 with Karim Beguir.
Anne-France Wittmann
Anne-France Wittmann works in the unit in charge of Regional Cooperation in the Southern Neighbourhood, at the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) of the European Commission. She notably focuses on women economic empowerment.
Her previous experience includes over ten years of programme management in non-governmental and decentralized cooperation organisations and with the United Nations, specialising in support to local actors of development notably in North Africa.
Christophe Malherbe
Christophe Malherbe is the team leader of the MED MSMEs Regional Programme, funded by the European Union. The programme, active in 8 countries of the Southern Mediterranean, provides support for the development of a business environment and policies that are conducive to the development MSMEs, particularly in the field of alternative finance and digital. For the last 20 years he has been an engaged advocate of private sector development in the South Med region, both as adviser of international institutions and governments and as private equity investor. He is graduated from the Ecole Centrale de Lyons and MBA HEC Paris.
Sana Afouaiz
Sana is an award-winning, gender expert, women advocate, and public speaker on feminism and women issues. She is author of “Invisible Women of the Middle East”. She has spoken in 50 countries at universities, panel discussions and international events.
In 2016, she established the Womenpreneur Initiative that aims to advance women’s place in the entrepreneurial scene, technology, innovation & society. Since its establishment, Womenpreneur has trained 16,000 women in Belgium and the MENA region. Through her work, Sana reached thousands of women, to drive visibility, social impact, and resources for women in the ecosystem and beyond.
For the past 7 years, Sana advised the United Nations, European Commission, corporate institutions and organisations on gender issues. She was heavily involved in SDGs discussions, she helped draft several resolutions and recommendations on gender in New York, Bali, Geneva, and Paris and presented them to UN representatives
Chiraz Bensemmane
Serial entrepreneur, moderator and speaker, and Algeria Laureate for Women in Africa WIA54 2021 program, Chiraz Bensemmane helps companies, individuals, and coaches connect and get access to the right resources and systems so they can grow and have a greater impact.
She is the founder of Pitch World Fast, a business development & project management consulting company & of Coach Tribe, an online coaching platform and international movement helping democratize coaching. Being Algerian and having worked and lived in more than 12 different countries, Chiraz is a firm believer in diversity and international cooperation. Today her community of coaches can serve their clients in 16 different languages from all around the world, no matter the place, their nationality, or identity in matters of business, mindset, career among other things.
She has spoken and moderated on international stages in Algeria, Spain, Botswana on topics related to entrepreneurship and women entrepreneurship, digitalisation, ecommerce, coaching, and women network in IT, among others.
Ayah Elarief
Ayah Elarief, is a passionate k12 entrepreneur, an Ambassador with MENA Women Business Club, the Founder&CEO of Warrd for Information Technology, an instructor, a Podcast host and a caring Mum. She has +17 years of experience in the ed-tech industry while managing various teams from operations to business development. She has taught animation and digital Practice for 2 years at the American University in Cairo. She also has been a speaker, a mentor and a judge for fresh entrepreneurs in various events in the last couple of years, and recently she has been participating a lot in programs with the UN Women Egypt and AUC School of Business through their Centre for entrepreneurship and innovation and ITIDA, it’s something that she is proud of where she is able to give the community back who have helped her earlier in her early career life.
Ayah Graduated from the faculty of Fine Arts back in 2008 from the Graphics department and her major was in Animation, recently She is a PHD Candidate in the Faculty of Fine Arts in Zamalek. She has won various Awards through her career with her amazing teams that She has managed in her previous positions. Ayah has won the Microsoft for startups competition in 2022, she also won the 2nd place in 2018 in the competition of the ICT for women, again she won the the 2nd place in the Cairo International Animation festival 2017 and the 2nd Place in Orange Startup cup 2017.
She has also had various art exhibitions in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Sweden and Egypt. She believes that she was lucky enough that she was able to visit more than 17 countries worldwide, through her exhibitions and also through her previous job positions wether she was closing deals with new potential clients or attending important conferences.
Clara Gruitrooy
Secretary General, EMA e.V.
Clara Gruitrooy, born in 1982, studied international law in Paris and Potsdam. In the course of her consecutive master’s degree in “Intercultural Conflict Management”, she concentrated on the pressing issues in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
Mrs. Gruitrooy has helped build the Euro-Mediterranean-Arab Association EMA since 2009, which she led as managing director until she was elected Secretary General. Before that, she completed a stay abroad at the German embassy in Morocco and worked in the “International Dialog” department at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
From early on, Mrs. Gruitrooy gave the EMA a formative role in German-Arab cooperation. The German-Arab network of women entrepreneurs she initiated and the mentoring program “Ouissal” carried out with support by the federal government have long since become a central pillar of the work of the EMA.
Clara Gruitrooy stands for a partnership approach, professionalism, and diplomatic skills. Regular training in good association management and the further training course “NPO Management” (2017) round off her many years of practical experience.
Joumana Sweiss
Joumana Sweiss has 15 years of working experience in EU policies and particularly in euro-Mediterranean relationships. After a short experience at DG ECHO at the European Commission, she started her career in managing EU projects related to research and innovation and focusing on cooperation with Arabic countries. Since mid-2017, she works at the ENI CBC MED as programme officer, following up on projects especially those dealing with social inclusion, women and youth unemployment in the MENA region. She is fluent in Arabic, French, English and Spanish.
