Women should take crucial roles in tougher industries’

RITIKA SHARMA / EMIRATES BUSINESS

Women are being encouraged by leaders in aero-space industry to look beyond conventional career choices like teaching and explore more hard-core fields like engineering, construction and technical sides of aviation.
Sheikha Al Maskari, Chief Innovation Officer of UAE Space Agency told Emirates Business that there is a need of more female professionals in “tougher” fields like aero-space.
Al Maskari, said on the sidelines of recently held Global Aerospace Summit in Abu Dhabi that there is a need for more female professionals to take up important roles in “tougher” fields like aero-space.
“It is my message to all the females that ours is a growing sector with lot of opportunities and they (women) should consider it as their career choice. There are a good number of females in other softer fields like teaching and communications, but women should try entering other fields like aviation and engineering as well,” Al Maskari proposed.
It was a delightful sight at the ADNEC as this year’s Global Aerospace Summit saw a substantial participation from women. The participation is being seen as a welcome change in light of a recent global survey that says only 5 percent of aerospace engineers are females. The event this year suggests otherwise for the UAE aviation industry.
From panel discussions to strategy sessions, females enthusiastically participated in the two-day Aerospace summit, thereby encouraging other women to explore the field of aviation and aerospace as their career choice.
Talking about the encouraging number of female that took part in the summit she said, “Apart from the summit, we (USE space agency) have a very promising number of ladies at decision making and management positions. Look at the UAE mars mission, there are a lot of female engineers and scientists that are working on the historic project. It’s a very positive picture.”
Al Maskari was one of the speakers at the summit on the second day, which happened to coincide with the International Women’s day. Marillyn Hewson, Chairman, President and CE Lockheed Martin Corporation, Ellen Lord, President and CEO Textron Systems and Hoda A. Alkhzaimi, Head of Cyber Security and Cryptography Department, Emirates Technology Innovation Center (ETIC) were a few other speakers to name.
Maria Stephens, one of the visitors at the summit told Emirates Business, “It is such a pleasant sight; I came to the summit last time as well, but the participation of females this time is applaud-able. Aerospace is not an industry we generally related to women, but things are changing and UAE is leading the way it seems.”
.