5 Badass Muslim Women in Tech
Happy Muslim Women’s Day! You know who doesn’t get enough recognition? All the badass women in tech making moves and shaking up the industry. So in honor of today (and everyday, really), we’re highlighting some of our favorite Muslim techies we think you should know about.
1. Fiona Kirubi, Chairperson to Muslim Women Tech
Muslim Women Tech was founded in 2016 to offer women opportunities and skills they’ll need to empower themselves in the new, digital age. Fiona leads initiatives at the org with a passion for economic empowerment and community development. She is also an International Finance practitioner with networks across the G.C.C, Africa, Asia and Europe. Follow her on Twitter @fkirubi.
2. Mariam Mohamed, Strategist at DTE Energy
Mariam Mohamed is a Computer Science grad with an MS in Information Systems and currently a Strategist at DTE Energy, a Detroit-based energy company that provides electricity to 2.2 million customers in Southeastern Michigan and natural gas to 1.2 million customers in Michigan.
She fell in love with CS in high school after taking an AP CS course and ended up studying it further in college. As an intern, she wrote a web-based application to capture safety observations and provide various reports to track submissions at DTE Energy. That same system is accessible to 10,000+ employees and is the enterprise-wide system for capturing safety observations used by all leaders in the company. #nbd. You can find her on LinkedIn here.
3. Ayman Nadeem, Software Engineer at Github
Initially interested in building physical systems and robotics, Ayman studied AI and focused on bridging tech with social good. She launched her first startup, Valley Innovations, at the age of 17, in order to offer environmentally-friendly appliances for people to reliably compost in their homes in a clean and accessible way. From there, she graduated from Waterloo, worked a variety of jobs from engineering to product management, and has settled at Github as a software developer.
Her advice to those interested in tech? “The tech industry is so big and vast right now, it has many different sub-areas and disciplines. I can only speak for software engineering. You obviously need to have some level of competence and exposure to a programming language, and also exposure to some tools. But ultimately it’s about your problem-solving ability and how you communicate that. I’d say, the easiest way to get noticed is by working on side projects that demonstrate your skills, like open-source projects. Show you’re doing meaningful stuff by building and creating artifacts that speak for themselves.” You can follow her on Github, Medium, and Twitter.
4. Daniah Din, Enterprise Account Executive at Asana
Poli-Sci major turned tech sales master, Daniah Din found her start in tech through SurveyMonkey as an intern. From there, she carved out niche roles at the small company (at the time), and was able to make a name for herself. Now at Asana, a company that stresses diversity, she says, “The company made me feel safe after Trump was elected. A lot of people at work reached out to me and asked how I was doing. Our leadership made it clear where they stood on the Muslim ban.” Catch her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
5. Faten Hijazi, Engineer and Program Manager at Google
Initially an applications and hardware engineer at a semiconductor company, Faten felt the slow pains of career growth. After 6 years in hardware design, she left the industry to pursue an MBA, leading to managing, sales, and travel, all while caring for her family.
Despite crushing it, she faced backlash in the industry, saying, “In that industry, few women hold that kind of role. My gender suddenly had become very apparent to me in a way I did not feel in engineering. As an engineer, I was judged on my technical deliverables. In business, I was judged by what people thought I could do. As a Muslim woman of color who wore hijab, I looked very different than my male counterparts. My power and authority were often under scrutiny. Yet I had a business to manage.” Letting nothing stop her, Faten moved to Google, a company who actively pushes for inclusion, where she started fresh as a program manager. She’s been killing it ever since. Follow her on LinkedIn.
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Lesbians Who Tech + Allies is a global community of over 30,000 LGBTQ women (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer) and gender nonconforming people in tech. Lesbians Who Tech promotes the visibility, leadership, and education of our community. Join us at Lesbianswhotech.org/signup
