By Aaliyah Gohir (MWN Hub's Editorial and Communications Manager)

The UN’s theme for International Women’s Day 2023 is ‘DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality’. The gender gap in the tech and digital world means that women’s’ contributions and accomplishments in this field are underrepresented! You can go over to the UN’s International Women’s Day page for more awareness and information about women in tech!

Unfortunately, Muslim women are even more so underrepresented, so our focus is to highlight and inspire Muslim women! Below you can find our Q&A with Atikah Amalina who works for Amazon and has kindly answered some questions about her journey pursuing a tech career! Atikah, along with Sehr Akbar (who works for Meta), also attended our Annual General Meeting held in the House of Lords back in January where we celebrated their careers in tech as they shared their inspiring experiences – you can find our TikTok/reel video that captured the event on our Instagram page @mwnhub!

We hope Atikah’s career in tech inspires all Muslim women to pursue their desired career! Disclaimer: All views are the writer's own and do not reflect their work companies.

Tell us a bit about yourself and background! Where you grew up, what you aspired to be, and who you work for now…

I was born and raised in Singapore, and in May 2022, I moved to London to join Amazon. In Dec 2022, I was recognised as one of the UK's Top 10 Influential Muslims in Tech by EqualityX. Currently, I'm a Senior Program Manager in Amazon managing DEI programs across UK, Europe, Middle East & Africa, after 3.5 years at Google leading programs across Asia Pacific.

My earliest well-formed career aspiration was to work at the United Nations. In fact, I went to university to study International Relations. However, due to financial constraints and a bankruptcy within the family, I had to drop out of university and choose a very different path after finding myself a sponsorship in the education ministry. I became an English Language & Literature teacher in a secondary school in Singapore and worked on community-based projects focused on marginalised groups, philanthropy and mental health, outside of school hours while serving my bond. I then took a leap of faith and left teaching in 2018 to pursue a Professional Fellowship with the US Dept of State, managing diversity and inclusion projects in a non-profit in San Francisco. I was one of 75 chosen from more than 5300 applications worldwide. In 2019, upon returning to Singapore and updating my LinkedIn writing about my experiences, I was approached by Google to be their first DEI Program Manager specialising in pipeline building for the workforce in APAC. It’s not quite the UN, but hey I finally got to work at scale! Google was a steep learning curve, needing to learn the corporate tech lingo and norms and stumbling as I do, while also building up my confidence in my skills and expertise.

Have you always wanted to pursue a career in tech?

I had a strong attraction to work in tech since it allowed for impact at scale, similar to my UN aspirations. I began to realise that there is great value in being different, and tech needs that difference. In today's context where many economies' growths are driven by tech, being in tech gives you an unusual amount of power, and many products and services that impact our lives are shaped by tech.

What does your job role involve?

I lead high-impact programs, focusing on UK, Europe, Middle East & Africa, that centre DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion).I work with teams globally to create a place where everyone can thrive in an inclusive and diverse environment that supports their success.

What do you enjoy about working in tech and why would you recommend Muslim women to pursue a career in tech?

I enjoy the ability to have impact at scale, while working with a diverse range of co-workers across different nationalities and cultures. Professionally, I often struggle with the lack of diverse representation within the tech industry and the lack of role models who look like me or have gone through similar paths to me. These have resulted in both imposter syndrome and a sense of isolation and loneliness. Furthermore, as a Muslim women wearing the hijab, it is rare that I come across someone who looks like me in the corporate workplace, or in the wider tech industry. I’m also the first graduate and the only person in my family working in tech. These all result in an added layer of needing to navigate new social environments above the strenuous cognitive demands of the job, while not having someone who truly understands some of the challenges that I face as a minority and what could help make things better. Nonetheless, I’ve learnt to identify and lean on allies and mentors who believe in me and actively sponsor me, to challenge the expectation of perfection and to embrace progress instead, and to take ownership of my achievements and abilities. I’m also taking it on as an opportunity to motivate others like me to pursue careers in tech and providing pathways for them by showing just one of many ways it can be done.

I believe Muslim women need to take part in driving and leading the conversation forward. Ensuring that the creators of tech are diverse results in better products that serve the needs of its users and ensures that marginalised communities are included. I also believe generational socioeconomic change can be influenced by participation in tech, something I am experiencing myself. Access to careers in tech and STEM education are valuable because of that. With more awareness and opportunities available today, I am excited for the change that is possible.Whatever industry Muslim women are in, I encourage all of us to gather data - to identify and then leverage the differences that we bring to add richness to the groups we're in.

I believe much can be done, and still needs to be done to enable more women to get opportunities in tech. And when we speak about women, we should be mindful too about the intersectionality of identities that comes with gender. Women ourselves are diverse, as we can see around the room. It’s not a one-magical solution, but requires a thoughtful multi-dimensional approach that has touch points across the lifecycle - from early education to access to quality university education, to job internship or apprenticeship opportunities, and equitable family leave policies.

Is there anything else you like to share about working as a Muslim woman in tech – any advice, quotes, interesting stories or experiences?

One of the most powerful things my very first manager said to me, she was an American woman who was leading the recruiting team, while I was struggling to settle in was this: You deserve to be here and you are needed here. Take ownership of the opportunity you've been given and take up space. You matter, just like everyone else who has been hired here. And she proceeded to show how much she believed in her statement, by building me up and creating opportunities for me to grow and build myself. I wouldn’t be here if not for her. She looked around to see who she can pull up with, and she did. She did what Toni Morrison eloquently reminded her students to do: "When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”

All of us have some form of power. I hope we use this power collectively to empower others around us and bring them up with us. We can aim to be the best amongst us who bring the greatest benefits to many others. I look forward to partnering with you on that!