First economic Arab business women forum: Businesswomen projects- reality and ambition

Under the patronage of United Arab Emirates (UAE) First Lady Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak and president of the general Women's Union in the UAE, the first economic Business women forum "businesswomen projects- reality and ambition" was held on October 7 through 10 at Rotana hotel in Abu Dhabi.

The forum aims at providing a common platform for Arab businesswomen to share their experiences, and develop mutual beneficial business networks. It also aims to enhance the role of Arab businesswomen in taking decisions in the economic field related to Arab trade and industry. It plans to consider the challenges and hurdles facing Arab businesswomen leading to greater participation in the economic development of the region and efficient use of available economic resources; and also to discuss investment opportunities and trade possibilities to develop a network of entrepreneurs in the Arab states.

The event was organized by the council of Arab women; the Arab League, the general women's union and Abu Dhabi chamber of commerce and industry.

The main sponsors of this remarkable event is "Kingdom Holding company" of Saudi Arabia; "First Islamic Investment Bank" of Manama, Bahrain; "Damas Jewellery" and "Knowledge Horizon."

Highlighting her active participation at the forum, Syrian Businesswoman Siham al-Salameh, first General manager of the World programming and Technologies Company (PTC) and first general manager of Image way worldwide " told Arabicnews.com that the event was a great opportunity to meet with Arab counterparts and to display her company's special experience in information technologies.

She said that constantly evolving technology has raised customer expectations to a great level, placing greater pressure on governments and other service providers in the region to deliver customer-focused services using multiple channels.

She added that customers are no longer content with single-channel mode of transaction, and with the fast-paced developments taking place on the technology front, they would only get more demanding.

She continued that through a series of pilot initiatives, all driven by the cutting edge technology, "we have been able to add innovative new channels of interactive communication between us and our customers."

She continued that at the meantime "IT managers are faced with the daunting task of aligning their enterprises' business models with their technology decisions to ensure attractive Return on Investment," adding that a major requirement needed to achieve this is to put together an appropriate plan linked to a strategic human capital management. It is vitally important to involve the company's decision makers in formulating and designing this plan to suit their (company) individual requirements. Forums like this, which brings Arab business women together demonstrating their experiences; are helpful because they promote exchange of ideas and experiences not only from top-level IT professionals but also from other economic sectors, and benefit from other stories of success."

On her impression about the event Mrs. Siham al-Salameh said that she was impressed, in particular, by the performance of Arab businesswomen in most Arab states especially experiences shown by peers from Tunisia and the Gulf region, noting that what is more remarkable with the Arab Gulf woman is that her commitment and combining together ancient Arab legacy of generous hospitality and tradition with most sophisticated modern innovations. A vivid example on such unique combination is in the remarkable presence of Sheikha Hessa Abdullah al-Sabah, chairperson of the Arab businesswomen council.

On the participation of the Syrian delegation which is composed of 37 businesswomen representing various industries in the country, Mrs. Salameh noted that the presence and performance of the Syrian delegation was beyond what is expected. And for better participation in such festivities she recommended that the Syrian women delegation should have been more organized and of a unified work-plan, rather than having unorganized individual participation.

On choosing this realm which is quite new for woman, Mrs. Al- Salameh said that encouraged by the special care given by President Bashar al-Assad to IT as means for peoples progress for building the country's solid economic foundation with a rapidly changing world, she got her self involved in this sector.

Introducing her company's latest contribution to IT industry in Syria, Mrs. Al-Salameh in particular focused on the fact that natural growth of a business requires a program that can support it and grow with it. She said that to move to automation in business management is no lobger an optional step and that it has become a necessary need to keep business and increase competitiveness. Taking this concept as a base, she explained that the company has developed a compatible arithmetic theory based on latest management science, covering wider spectrums of communities with the aim to releasing a new program that fits to create a net module of the management hierarchy and to create a computer assistant for every node at the management structure to that the management operation and the computer can be divided and therefore the access to information can be smoothly made. She added that this system allows the control of hundreds of computer database queries and applications forms by easyly changeable and increasing process and this provides the user with full freedom to classify data. She continued that with this newly introduced management which makes successful business, it will be possible to work on a single computer or simultaneously on a group of thousands computers across continents.

Noting her company's special experience in world languages program, Mrs. Salameh said that after intensive research, the world-wide PTC programmers were able to find the integrated solution which translates any text from any language to another, easily and fast. She elaborated that it just needs a single click to convert the text what ever is the source language and the target one, that includes any known human language would use.

She explained that one can use a program in English as an interface language and can edit his data using Arabic, another can use Dutch as an interface and edit his data in Spanish.

The engineer would be able to write his report in a native tongue language and the others can read the report in the language they prefer, so as the language will not be a barrier in experience exchange.

She said that the company's program ( World wide languages ) aims to provide a comprehensive solution for the translation issue in all world languages, with the ability to handle all systems, database type, language expression forms; scripts and images through a smart self - learning method.

She expressed deep gratitude for the organizers of the event and for the warm welcome and warm hospitality given to the forum's guests, hoping that similar events at the national, Arab and international levels will be held to contribute to closer inter- Arab businesswomen contacts.