PWiC Berlin at Oslo Innovation Week
Oslo Innovation Week held on September 23–27th 2019 was aimed at providing solutions towards a sustainable future. The core idea was highlighting the pioneers; the startup founders and the investors, the corporate and public sector leaders, scientists, programmers and makers, who dare to take the path less traveled to find business solutions that will help build a more sustainable world.
PWiC Berlin team took part in the Oslo Innovation Week. The team collaborated with EjadLabs and was part of several activities/events happening during the that week. The team also organized a social meetup to connect with the community there. Altogether it was a huge success for the team as PWiC got more exposure and received really positive feedback for their work.
Agenda
The trip was organized as follows
- PWiC Oslo Meetup
- Pakistan Tech Summit (PTX)
- Embassy Visit in Oslo
PWiC Oslo Meetup
PWiC organized a meetup to connect with the local community of Oslo. The meetup featured a panel discussion and a keynote talk by Shamim Rajani followed by networking.
Keynote — “CODE GIRLS : Educate a girl, empower a nation”
Shamim Rajani gave a very inspiring keynote talk in our meetup and discussed the importance of education in Pakistan and how her initiative of Code Girls has been contributing to it over the years. Helping young girls to get the right set of hard and soft skills to land a job in the tech industry has been her major focus over the past years.
The panel discussion topic was “Women Empowerment in Tech and steps to take forward”.
Panel participants were all Pakistani Women in Tech from diverse industry backgrounds and working experience from Pakistan, Germany, and Oslo. The main focus of the panel discussion was to highlight the issues faced by the women in tech, raise awareness and discuss steps to improve and empower the women in tech
The discussion started with the introduction of all the panelists followed by their inspiring personal stories and the hurdles they had to face during their journey. A very prominent issue found in their stories was the common stereotypes they have to face in their daily job life, biases towards women and the issues of not being taken seriously or appreciated. Moreover, issues related to fewer women role models in the tech industry, the attitude of giving up when faced with hardships and not being able to make good decisions were also discussed. The panel discussion concluded with ending remarks on how to motivate girls to study in STEM fields, enter into the tech industry and way of connecting them with industry role models.
Pakistan Tech Summit (PTX)
An evening during the Oslo Innovation Week was set aside for PTX which was geared to celebrate Pakistani startups, innovators and inventors working on disruptive technologies. The idea was to provide a platform for the community to come together and work in collaboration for mutual and impactful development for the future of Pakistan. PWiC members participated in multiple sessions during the summit.
Panel Discussion “2019 Trending Technologies and Our Future: A brief insight of Engineering, AI, VR/AR, Data Science & UI/UX”
One of them was a panel discussion on the topic of trending technologies like AI/ Data Science, VR/AR, and UI/UX and their future worldwide and in developing countries like Pakistan.
The panel participants were all from Pakistan originally and currently settled in either Pakistan or Germany and had experiences in diverse areas of the tech industry. They shared their experience of working in Pakistan and abroad. The participants highlighted that Pakistan has so many companies that are already up to date with the latest trending technologies and working in these domains. Multinational companies have opened offices in Pakistan and have their technical department set up there. Companies and startups are working on outsourced projects. The discussion ended with some concluding remarks by Shamim Rajani on how we as Pakistan Tech industry can further improve and highlight the potential that Pakistan has to the outside world.
Fireside Chat “Role of emerging countries like Pakistan in the context of global innovation”
Jannet Faiz moderated the Fireside chat with Jehan Ara — Founder of Nest I/O Tech Incubator and President P@SHA and Shahjahan Chaudhary — Director at National Incubation Center, Karachi.
The chat focused on the unrealized and untapped potential in Pakistan as it is producing over 10,000 IT graduates every year (since 2010). Jehan Ara and Shahjahan highlighted that there is a huge talent pool that is already working towards betterment in innovation fields by giving examples of software companies started by Pakistani founders which have a big presence in the international market such as Careem, KeepTrucking, Affiniti, etc. The number of people interested in founding new startups with their own ideas is constantly increasing every year and this calls for mutual collaboration with the global market to invest more in these topics.
The PTX ended with great joy and appreciation for women in technology and the PWiC team had the chance to share the stage with big bird Jehan Ara who presented Ajruk to the team.
Embassy Visit in Oslo
PWiC was invited to the Embassy of Pakistan in Oslo, Norway to meet the ambassador Mr. Zaheer Pervaiz Khan (Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the Kingdom of Norway). The aim of this visit was to connect with the Norwegian Pakistanis as well as to represent PWiC and share the mission of PWiC. During this visit, PWiC was greeted by the ambassador along with some young Pakistani entrepreneurs living in Oslo. The meetup proceeded with a brief introduction of PWiC leads in Berlin and a welcome note from the ambassador in which he explained how delightful he is to see such young talent especially females working abroad and representing their countries. And not only that but also giving back to the Pakistani female community both abroad and back home. He also emphasized on the fact that it is important to have female representation in STEM as well as in other professional roles. Here are a few highlights from the meeting:
With this we conclude our visit to Oslo, Norway and the PWiC representation and collaboration with the local tech community there. In order to grow and be stronger as a community, our vision aligns to improve diversity and inclusion in the tech industry and it is only possible by collaboration and supporting each other. We are looking forward to our next meetups and community growth.
About the Author
Sadia Naz is a Software Engineer, Co-Lead of PWiC Berlin Chapter and an aspiring Data Scientist. She is a graduate of the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) Islamabad. She has 3+ years experience of working in Pakistani and German tech industry. She loves coding, especially developing creative solutions for challenging problems.
Besides this, she loves traveling and exploring new areas. She is also passionate about empowering young talent and supporting them to achieve their goals.
