By Rania Moussly, Staff Reporter, Gulf News

Published: March 13, 2011

Dubai: International female IT professionals met in Dubai last week to call for more women in the IT profession as numbers have been on the decline since the 1990s.

The women spoke at the ‘Geek Girls' event organised as part of the Microsoft Tech Ed Middle East Conference.

Regional experts believe the global shortage of female IT professionals does extend to the UAE despite noticeable growth in the number of women interested in pursuing an IT education.

Downward trend

A recent US report states if decline trends continue, by 2018 there will not be enough employees to fill jobs in the US' IT industry. The Women in IT: the Facts report was released by the National Centre for Women and Information Technology.

Regional experts say although the number of Arab women interested in pursing technology careers by enrolling in IT university programmes is on the rise, professional retention rates remain low.

"Some of my classes are 100 per cent made up of women and many of my top students are women," said Dr Khalid Shaalan, senior lecturer of IT at the British University in Dubai (BUiD).

"With the technology evolution and the affordability of laptops, the work flexibility that comes with being in IT makes it more attractive to women as a profession; especially those with family responsibilities."

Dr Shaalan teaches IT at the Master's level at BUiD.

Dina Lasheen a Programme Manager with nearly a decade of experience in IT, works for Microsoft.

Lasheen has witnessed growing interest in the IT profession from women who live in the region. Yet, she believes the numbers of IT graduates who sustain long-lived careers in the industry are dwindling.

Regional experts say although the number of Arab women enrolled in IT university programmes is increasing, professional retention rates remain low