Women must be aware of tech innovations

Monique Jeanne Morrow, chief technology officer - New Frontiers Development and Engineering at Cisco Systems during the 18th Global Women in Leadership Conference in Dubai.

Women today need to pay close attention to what will be the future of work, especially in light of recent and ongoing technological innovations, an expert stressed.
Speaking on the second day of the 18th Global Women in Leadership Economic Forum in Dubai, Monique Jeanne Morrow, chief technology officer of new frontiers development and engineering at Cisco Systems, noted that women must look at the role of technology in all that is happening today.
"Many organisations today have embraced disruption, while others dismiss the threat and are adapting a wait-and-see approach," she said. "Women today make up 51 per cent of the world's population, and it is imperative that we are part of the new industrial revolution. Experts have dubbed this era as the age of the fourth industrial revolution. Technology today is moving very quickly and what we are seeing are the rise of cyber-physical and autonomous systems."
"Today, companies are looking at artificial intelligence, robotics and at ways in which they can write ethics into these new autonomous systems," Morrow continued. "What we are seeing today is the transformation of entire systems and organisations. Companies today need to move faster and undertake what is now being called life-long learning."
Morrow also noted that a convergence of mega trends in the technology sector is driving growth opportunities. Talent, she revealed, will ultimately be needed in sectors such as artificial intelligence and analytics, virtual reality, robotics, 3D printing, nanocoding, drones and in the Internet of Things. "The opportunities are fantastic and the impact on industries and business models is great."
A very important skill for people to have today is understanding cyber security. "There are people today that still don't understand how important an individual's privacy is. They need to understand how the latest technology and information sharing impacts them and what they do. In addition, technology today is helping people live longer, which means that they are working for longer as well. This is something that many employees and organisations are not focusing on yet, but will become important in the coming years."
Morrow also revealed that governments today also care deeply about the nature of work and are fast adopting strategies for key issues such as digitalisation. "Everything today is trending towards an open environment," she noted. "Employees are not just tools any more - they are partners. There is a push towards greater transparency in everything today; not just in the way an organisation works."
- rohma@khaleejtimes.com