in the company of strong women

The 8th of March was International Women's Day, and I was privileged to have spent the day with a group of truly extraordinary women.

The Woibex Conference on Women in Business was organized by Mr. Ali Al Kamali, the Managing Director of Datamatix. This was the 7th such conference Datamatix has hosted, which in and of itself is a remarkable achievement--Mr. Kamali has an obvious commitment to the advancement of women in business in the Middle East.

I was excited to attend this conference because it was an opportunity to see Dubai. But I will leave Dubai excited more by the women I met than by the beautiful country I had a chance to visit. It was such a privilege to share a stage with the speakers at this conference--people like The Honorable Miet Smet, the Belgian Minister of State and Member of the European Parliament, Dr. Deisi Noeli Weber Kusztra of Sao Paolo, President of the World Family Organization, Dr. Salwa A. Al-Jassar, a professor at Kuwait University, and Dr. Sultana Parvanta, the director of urban planning for Afghanistan.

The audience was wonderful, as well. A room full of energetic, intelligent, accomplished Middle Eastern women, many of whom were running successful business enterprises in their countries. I met a woman who owns several businesses in Dubai (and her daughters, one of whom is general manager for a local TV station, while the other works in corporate finance), a woman pilot who owns her own large aviation company in Qatar, a woman who publishes a series of online magazines in Saudi Arabia, and more. It was an incredible education for me in the accomplishments of Middle Eastern women, and I am so grateful to have had the chance to meet and speak with these exceptional women.

There was clear interest and excitement about the social computing concepts that I spoke about, and I believe that we're about to see a great deal of interesting technology activity from this region. (Today I'll be visiting the IT school at the American University of Dubai, guided by a young woman who studies there.)

During the conference I sat next to Dr. Elise Collins Shields, of the CommonWell Institute, who had in her notes a quote that she uses in her email signature, and which summed up the tone of the meeting:

If ever the world sees a time when women shall come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a power such as the world has never known.
--Matthew Arnold

So today I am filled with gratitude--for the opportunities that my family and my culture have provided for me. Without those, I would not have been able to experience this special day, in the company of these special women. The power I felt yesterday, the power of sisterhood and support, was awesome indeed.