Under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, UAE Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) and in the presence of HCT Provost Marshell Drummond, Dubai Women's College (DWC) held the 2009 international conference on Current Trends in Information Technology (CTIT '09). The conference was held at the DWC campus on December 15 and 16, in partnership with IBM, IEEE, British Computer Society and the Arab Computer Society. CTIT '09 was the first IT research conference in the Higher Colleges of Technology. The aim of the conference was to foster IT research through leadership that provides pragmatic solutions to global and community needs. More than 50 researchers from across the globe shared their creative forward-thinking research in the areas such as Human Computer Interaction, Virtual Environment, Multimedia Applications, Information Systems and others.
CTIT '09 hosted 3 keynote speakers: Dr. Ahmed N. Tantawy, Chief Technology Officer for IBM's Mega Projects in the Growth Market Area, Dr. David Moore, Principal Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK and Chair of the University's Disability Research Group, and Dr. Andrew Jones, Chief Researcher and Head of Information Security for the Security Research Centre at British Telecom.
One of the major highlights of the conference was the inauguration of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) UAE Chapter at Dubai Women's College, the first and only ACM professional chapter in the UAE. ACM being the world's first scientific and educational computing society provides a premier Digital Library and serves its members and the computing profession with leading-edge publications, conferences, and career resources. The ACM UAE Chapter at Dubai Women's College includes membership of three categories, Professional, Students and Women in Computing.
Dr. Amala Rajan, DWC IT faculty and member of CTIT'09 organizing committee said "Due to globalization and digitalization, industries are increasingly depending on IT to bring them innovative ways of competing in the global market. Embedding IT with organizational business processes is no longer an option today but a necessity. To this effect, I see academic institutions, such as DWC, have a responsibility in taking a leading role in the sharing and dissemination of knowledge regarding new trends in IT."
She added "Statistics show that the number of women selecting IT related careers have been on the decline for a number of years. Efforts are being taken all around the world to attract women into the field of computer science. This conference gave us the opportunity to contribute to this effort by taking a leading role in inspiring our young women to take a lead, not only in Dubai but internationally."
DWC 2008 IT Graduate, Budoor Al Housani, Assistant IT Project Supervisor at Road and Transport Authority, who participated at the conference with a research paper on Linux - Ubuntu, said "I consider my participation at this conference a huge achievement for me in terms of my educational, professional and personal life. It encourages me to take future initiatives and be an active person in the society. The opportunity of presenting a research paper at the International Conference emphasized on the power of sharing knowledge."
DWC anticipates this conference will give rise to many collaborations between DWC and various regional and international research based institutions which will bring Dubai to the forefront of IT research.
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About Dubai Women's College
Dubai Women's College (DWC), with more than 2,200 students, is part of the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT). The HCT is one of the leading higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirates with 16 campuses located throughout the country delivering a wide range of quality programs to over 16,500 students. DWC was established in 1989 and offers Bachelor and Diploma degrees in Business, Information Technology, Education, Health Sciences, and Applied Communications. Today, DWC is the quality provider of top-quality National women graduates in Dubai. DWC's mission is to provide a learning environment for young women to "Practice the Future" by developing confidence, professional excellence and an ethical commitment to leadership roles in a rapidly developing local economy.
For more information, please contact:
Dubai Women's College/Higher Colleges of Technology
Tel: 04-208-9269
Email: abrar.mikkawi@hct.ac.ae
© Press Release 2009
