By Anayat Durrani March 4, 2015 | 8:30 a.m. EST + More

Four of the five-member team known as 110% hold trophies after being recognized for their Unique Hand

mobile gaming app, developed during an all-woman coding competition in Dubai.

For as long as she can remember, Amirah Ahmad Daghache has had a fascination with electronics and

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computer systems. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, Daghache did really well in math and says she

was "the nerd that enjoyed doing her math homework."

Today, Daghache, a Palestinian-Canadian, is putting those math skills to use as a telecommunications

engineering major at the Canadian University of Dubai.

"I’m hoping to pursue my degree and work on programming for media companies," says Daghache, who

is the student representative for the School of Engineering, tasked with working with university officials to

help solve engineering students' concerns.

No longer just a boys' club, the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields are being

infiltrated by more women who are pursuing, and excelling, at these subjects offered by Arab region

universities. Studying STEM was a natural choice for Daghache, who is doing an internship at streaming

and video-on-demand platform, Icflix, and has future plans for a master’s in computer programming.

[See how Arab universities are offering opportunities to women.]

"I've already started my career in the field and I’m very optimistic about the future," says Daghache. "I’m

hoping to find new and better ways to organize databases and make it easier and smoother for

customers and clients to connect to media servers."

In the Gulf region, women comprise 60 percent of engineering students in universities, compared with 30

percent in the U.S. and Europe, according to UNESCO.

Hind Zantout, professor at the School of Mathematical & Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University

Dubai Campus, says women in her undergraduate computer science courses actively engage with the

subject matter on par with their male peers. She believes it is beginning to have a positive impact in the

technology startup market. And, Zantout sees multiple roles to be filled by women as the number and

type of Internet-connected devices continues to expand.

"With the Internet of Things fast hurtling toward us, there is also a pressing need for women to take part

in shaping this new world from all its aspects, be it legal, social or technological," says Zantout.

Feda Abdullah Al-Majed, a Saudi national, just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in management

information systems from Jubail University College in Saudi Arabia. While a student, she founded Girly

Talk, a beauty and lifestyle blog, an idea that won her first place for the 2014 Business Ideas Competition

at her school.

"It all started with a beauty blog. Then we opened our online store where we sold makeup and cosmetic

bags designed and made completely by us," says Al-Majed, who, along with her partner, is opening a

physical store.

In January, Al-Majed attended the first women-only hackathon in Dubai, sponsored by the Meera Kaul

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Foundation and held at the Canadian University of Dubai as part of the Women in STEM 2015

Conference and Awards. Her five-woman team took first place in the two-day coding competition, winning

the $5,000 prize for the mobile gaming prototype app they created in nine hours.

[Learn how online education at one Saudi university is engaging women.]

"We created a game under the name Unique Hand that was inspired from our culture and the henna

designs that are popular in this region," says Al-Majed. "Participating in such a big event opened my eyes

to different ideas and gave me the chance to meet new people and increase my connections."

Wes Schwalje, chief operating officer of Tahseen Consulting in the United Arab Emirates, says these

types of events have been ways Gulf Cooperation Council countries have sought to expose more

students to STEM. While research he has compiled on females in school and at work shows that Arab

women have indeed made gains in STEM, he says they "still face significant challenges in the workplace

that leads to segmentation into select fields." Some of these challenges include sociocultural barriers,

such as ideas about appropriate work and how much men and women should interact in the workplace.

Despite such barriers, women like Soumaya Tebbi, a French-Algerian chemical engineer, are pushing

through.

"Working in the Middle East, I have witnessed many companies implementing a diversity policy to

increase the number of women at the workplace especially in technical fields, so the opportunities are

waiting out there," says Tebbi, a regional sourcing manager working for a major oil and gas service

company in the UAE.

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TAGS: Arab region universities, United Arab Emirates, education, students, STEM education

Anayat Durrani is a Los Angeles-based freelance education reporter for U.S. News,

covering Arab region universities.

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