What brought you to a career in technology at the United Nations?
My career in technology at the United Nations combines two of my passions: technology and contributing to social good. As a teenager, I was always passionate about technology, computers, mathematics and artificial intelligence. Additionally, I always keept an eye on and was concerned by the social and economic issues taking place in the region and had always wondered how I could help. Years later, I did my Master's in Computer Science thesis on leveraging machine learning technologies to detect fake news in the Syrian war, which kickstarted my career in big data for social good. From this project onward, I decided on the career path of researching the many ways big data and artificial intelligence can be used to understand and improve the living conditions in a society.
What has been your favorite technology project or initiative at the United Nations and why? What was your contribution?
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, my team and I developed a big data for public policy platform that makes use of social media data streamed in near-real time to help policymakers in Lebanon and Jordan understand the needs and concerns of their population in terms of health, economy, education, etc. by processing social media and internet activity of the population in near-realtime. As the product manager, I contributed to decision makings such as deciding which data sources to integrate, tools and programming languages used, data storage and structure, in addition to dashboard design decisions.
What advice would you give women interested in pursuing a field in technology?
The best advice I can give women interested in pursuing a career in techonology is to follow your passion, fight for what you believe in, and challenge societal norms when you face them. Despite the stereotypes suggesting this field to be more male-dominant, it presents many amazing professional opportunities with a lot of versatility especially for women, so do not allow anyone to tell you you can't do it! I also advice them to surround themselves with positive and inspirational people who believe in them and encourage them to pursue their dreams, because these types of people had a great contribution to my motivation and believing in myself.