Women in Engineering Summit Highlights

This summer, I was in Tunisia for the women in engineering IEEE leadership summit. I was privileged to be invited as one of the speakers.
The summit was a weekend long conference packed with panelists, keynotes, learning sessions, City tour and special events meant for young professionals and women belonging to different fields of science and technology. It aims to provide leadership lessons, Knowledge sharing, Innovation tracks and discussing issues affecting young women in the field of Science and Technology.
I was on the Diversity and Inclusion panel with Eileen Scully and Melissa Sassi and moderated by Dr. Nejia Ben Helal. During the panel, I shared our Salesforce Ohana culture and how Equality is a core value.
This culture of equality led by several Ohana groups has helped Salesforce employees celebrate diversity, value more their peers and be true Allies to each other’s.
Being born in Tunisia, I also shared how important to implement inclusion in and beyond the education system and how it can have a huge impact on improving the sense of belonging among youth. A challenge that faces the country after going through years of dictatorship, corruption and specially being ruled by a certain segment of the society.
On the summit’s last day, I led a presentation on Growth Mindset. Introduced by Stanford Professor Carol Dweck in her book “Mindset”, growth mindset is a paradigm shift in thinking that can help people see challenges as a normal part of the growth process.
The highlight of my talk was on the benefits of having a growth mindset and how it influences our acts and behaviors towards the key factors of personal and professional growth. These factors include Effort, Challenge, Mistakes, and Feedbacks.
To cement the lessons on mindset, I shared my personal experience on how I built my own growth mindset. I talked about honoring my struggles when things do not go the way I wanted. And how it was a key for me to build resilience and a passion for learning.
Overall, the summit was a great success thanks to all IEEE leaders and students in Tunisia. A big shout out to Abir Chermiti and to all the guests and speakers who participated: Sana’ Odeh, Eileen Scully, Melissa Sassi, Takako Hashimo, Kaoutar, El Maghraoui, Monique J Morrow, Bozenna Pasik-Duncan…I was greatly inspired by the wealth of their experience and the insights that they shared in our discussions and chats.

At the end I think choosing Tunisia as the host for this IEEE leadership event is a testament to its progress in gradually tearing down gender barriers and a proof that the country is taking big steps toward empowering women in STEM and other fields.