UAE creates future female robotics entrepreneurs

The UAE could produce MENA’s next wave of female robotics and hardware entrepreneurs, as technology programs throughout the Emirates cater to more and more young women keen to get their hands dirty in the normally blokey sector.

STEM, or science, technology, engineering and maths, education programs in the UAE have seen more and more girls and young women signing up.

The participation of girls and young women in these programs makes bridging the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship more realistic, in a region where only 35 percent of tech entrepreneurs generally are women with there are even fewer in hardware.

In line with its aim to become a knowledge-based economy, the Emirates is becoming home to a number of educational centers such as Fun Robotics, the first KHDA-approved children’s robotics center in Dubai, as well as camps, workshops and localcompetitions that are focusing on teaching young women hardware and electronics.

One example was a workshop in June in Abu Dhabi, designed to introduce girls to the basics of advanced manufacturing. Girls aged between 11 and 13 years old learned how to build a fully-functioning robot using electronics and 3D-printed parts they’d made themselves at the GE Ecomagination Innovation Center at Masdar City.

Savvy entrepreneurs get in on the game

“We recently visited a girls’ school in Dubai to teach them how to use JunkBot, a startup that sells DIY robotic kits for kids, and they were very excited,” said JunkBot CEO Ehteshamuddin Puttur Abdul. “When they saw that the tools we use are familiar to them on a daily basis (such as household junk), it triggered their interest. They started to believe that this is easy and doable.”

Puttur Abdul told Wamda that girls make up about 40 percent of JunkBot’s clients.

Another upcoming venture that has witnessed an “extremely high” level of interest from young women is the Abu Dhabi Technology Development Committee’s (TDC) new makerspace, Techshop, to be launched in October.

Original article by Maysaa Ajjan

Continue reading at Wamda:

UAE creates future female robotics entrepreneurs