The Technology Express Magazine | Edition: August 2022

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INTERVIEWDEBBIE BOTHA,GLOBAL CHIEF PARTNERSHIP OFFICER, WOMEN IN AISHAHRIN OLI MOHAMED,HEAD OF INFORMATION & DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY(CIO) GLOBAL LNG TRADING AT SHELLQ: What is your take on digitaltransformation? What value willit add to the community movingforward?Debbie: The importance of digitaltransformation for me is to reallycross the analytics chasm from beingable to do retrospective businessintelligence up to autonomous andautomated machine learning and AImodels to improve your businessprocessesQ: Moving to you Shahrin, what’s yourtake on this topic?Shahrin: Digital transformation hasthe potential to change lives directlyor indirectly as companies use thepower of technology to get moreefficient and to get better at whatthey do, and I think it will impact theworld in multiple ways.Q: What operations do Women in AIrun in the UAE?Debbie: Yes, so we do have an officefor women in AI in UAE and we callthem ambassadors and they areleadership teams. The ambassadorfor women in AI in the UAE is Dr.Hoda A.Alkhzaimi and the ChiefOperating Officer is Yasmin AlEnazi. So I work closely with themfor partnerships but I representglobal. We have a fantastic upcomingopportunity at Gitex where we willrun several things over there aswe will be present physically. Wehave been more virtual with eventsand hackathons and all sorts ofgatherings for women with educationand talks but now we will go a bitmore face-to-face. We will reallystart organizing. There are so manyfantastic women in AI at this eventthat are not yet members. So we willdefinitely make sure that we gatherall these women and have muchmore representation.Q: Very informative speech. Thankyou for it. My final question to youis how do you see Dubai’s digitaltransformation path and futuredigitizing endeavors?Debbie: Yes, the future is massive.I would talk from an artificialintelligence perspective. UAE aswe all know is the first nation witha minister for AI and also the firstuniversity for Artificial Intelligence.I have already seen many fantasticpeople graduating from Mohamedbin Zayed University of ArtificialIntelligence | MBZUAI. There arewomen and men in really influentialpositions that have already gottenmasters at this university. So thatto me is fantastic. I would just like24/ AUGUST 2022www.thetechnologyexpress.com
Digital transformationhas the potential tochange lives directly orindirectly as companiesuse the power oftechnology to get more efficient andto get better at what they do, andI think it will impact the world inmultiple ways.The importance ofdigital transformationfor me is to really crossthe analytics chasmfrom being able to doretrospective business intelligenceup to autonomous and automatedmachine learning and AI models toimprove your business processesto add that in the UAE we as womenare really privileged. We are giventhe opportunity to really thrive andreduce that gender gap that we havebecause worldwide only 25% of thetechnical experts in data analyticsand AI are women. 10% of articlesand publications in this field are bywomen and as we have said 50%of women in this field drop off midcareer.Ithink UAE is on the right pathto close that gap.The AI solutions thatare being built in general are verybiased and there are lots of researchabout that showing that it is becauseof the gender gap.UAE is on the pathto close that gap for sure. I am veryconfident in that.Q: Women represent a smallpercentage in the technology field,can you elaborate on this point andgive your opinion on how can womenhave more rights and be morerepresented?Shahrin: Thank you for the question.I think it’s an important question,especially one that is asked by aman because men have an importantrole to play to help achieve equity& inclusion. So how do we helpincrease the representation ofwomen in tech? So apart from theamazing work that people like Debbieand her team are doing already, thereare a few things that companies cando. So the first is, to have concretetargets for the representation ofwomen in these leadership positionsfrom C-suite to mid-level managersand that’s what we have done inShell because especially in trading,the problem is a lot more acuteas there are not many women intrading and in tech its slightly morechallenging, so that’s the first. Thesecond thing that I found immenselyuseful is mentorships. So pair upwomen with more senior leadersto help them navigate their careersbecause it will help them acrossvarious instances for example toact as a sounding board or tacklerelevant challenges for instancebuilding executive presence, buildingtheir brand, how to be more credible,confident or even just to test ideasand get perspectives for dilemmas,etc. So mentorship and coaching andinvesting in them are very impactful.It does not need to be expensiveas I think it can be done for freefor instance connecting folks withnetworks. The third for me would beto build a pipeline across the differentlayers of the organization. Wetypically see a drop-off of women atmiddle management-level and thereare multiple reasons for that. One ofthe reason is sometimes not beingcompetitive enough to get to the nextlevel. To overcome that, the solutionlies in providing opportunities forgrowth. We also want to be mindfulabout inadvertently creating positivediscrimination. We do not want tohire someone just because they arefemale or from a minority race butwe want more women and minorityfolks to have the opportunitiesto prepare them to be able to becompetitive for it.Interviewer- It should be becauseof their qualification and not out ofmercy.Shahrin: Exactly. We want themto be the best person for the role.Person- not female or male. Sohow do we do that? The answer isby providing opportunities that theymay not have and opportunities couldbe exposure to projects, it could beinternational assignments, it couldbe broadening assignments, it couldbe training, support for developmentareas and all of the above. So that’scrucial, and the last piece is to caterto their needs. I think we are seeingthis with the hybrid working wherewe do not have an appreciation thateach person is an individual andindividuals have individual needs. Oneperson might appreciate taking onemonth for snowboarding, anotherperson might appreciate workingremotely and it’s about creatingan environment and culture that isaccepting of all of that. So comingback to the question of diversity, itis about understanding the uniqueneeds of these folks and buildingan environment where we areabsolutely alright with that, so forinstance, mothers who take timeoff for maternity leave, how do weensure that they have a softer landingback into the organization whenthey come back. That could also benormalizing things like sabbaticals.www.thetechnologyexpress.com AUGUST 2022 / 25
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