The Women Techmakers (WTM) group held its inaugural event on the 4th of Oct 2017 at Kuwait University Khaldiya campus, and was attended by over 60 students, academics, and IT professionals mainly from the University and more that joined in via YouTube Live streaming.
The event started with an introduction of the Women Techmakers / Google and Google Developer Group by Dr. Zainab AlMeraj and Ms. Sundus AlFaresi, WTM Kuwait group Lead Organizers, followed by a discussion on the importance of empowering women in technology through creating a community, and prompting visibility and resources. The introduction was made complete by a call in from Lebanon WTM and GDG Lead Developer Rayan AlZahab who answered questions and shared her experiences with WTM the audience and answered multiple questions.
Women Techmakers mission is to drive developer success and contribute towards a healthy tech ecosystem in Kuwait. The target technologies involved include Google tech from Android, Chrome, Drive, Google Cloud platforms and API’s like Cast API, Maps API, and YouTube API. Dr. AlMeraj then highlighted that by becoming a member both women and men have access to multiple Google and Udacity scholarships and certifications. The year long events by WTM were then listed and included two programming training workshops (Android App building and website building), and an International Women’s Day conference event on the 8th of March 2018. Dr. AlMeraj stressed the importance of diversity and equal representation of women in higher-level tech positions to drive performance and innovation.
The highlight of the event features a website security workshop that was presented by Engr. Mohammad Aldoob. The agenda revolved around three questions with practical implementations 1) Why should we secure the Web? 2) What are defensible applications and 3) Security in the cloud. The audience left with a better understanding of Web Attacks, Web Infrastructure, and attacks on Cloud Computing as well as how to avoid them. The workshop involved live demos of attacks on website databases, user targeted attacks and how to avoid them through code examples. Mr. Aldoob is a specialist and certified trainer in information security, an avid volunteer and the leader of the Open Web Application Security Project for Web Applications in Kuwait.
The WTM Kuwait workshop ended with some networking and a call to join as a member. WTMKuwait is open to everyone interested to learn and to help others. Everyone is free to propose events and to drive workshops. The remaining events can be accessed through the following meetup page, RSVP to attend: https://www.meetup.com/wtm-kuwait/