10Pearls University holds Women Tech Quest 2022, Pakistan’s biggest tech competition for women
Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) Women Tech Quest 2022, an initiative of 10Pearls University, is a platform for women to compete, network and showcase their tech talents. The 6th edition of Women Tech Quest (WTQ) took place on March 12, 2022, and was physically held in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Over 1200 women in technology from across the 3 cities took part in the event.
WTQ, launched in 2017, is a competition dedicated to help women gauge and showcase their tech skills, get recognition, and also win great cash prizes and exposure. Additionally, there are inspirational speaker sessions and hands-on workshops, in which leading professional women share their experiences to help other budding professionals grow and excel.
According to Zeeshan Aftab, Co-Founder and MD, 10Pearls, “This was our 6th consecutive year of successfully conducting Women Tech Quest. As one of our pioneering initiatives for gender diversity and women empowerment, WTQ has accelerated careers of 4000+ women, strengthened Pakistan’s tech industry with incredible talent pool, and provided women an established platform to shine and showcase their limitless potential.”
Multiple competition streams
The competition comprised three streams; Coding, Testing and Design. The Coding competition included a series of problems presented to the participants; they could use any programming language to solve them. The Testing competition presented contestants with a set of objectives to test database and automation concepts; while the Design Competition required participants to solve a UI/UX challenge, and their approach towards user research, persona building and user flows was gauged.
There were two categories for participation: Professional and Student category for each stream (Coding, Testing and Design), and each city had winners from them. Winners received grand cash prizes and shields, whereas all participants received swag kits and certificates of completion.
Invigorating speaker sessions and workshopsApart from the Competition, WTQ also featured inspirational speaker sessions by esteemed women such as Halima Iqbal, CEO/Founder, Oraan; Dr Asia Khanum, Founder of Emerging Technologies Labs; and Fatemah Sajwani, Manager, Global Talent Sourcing at KeepTruckin. The opening keynote was delivered by Carrie Kerpen, CEO, Likeable and Managing Director, 10Pearls.
In her opening note, Carrie shared her enriching journey to the top, and stressed on the importance of staying authentic, “Own who you are. If you lean in to who you are and work the best parts of yourself, you’ll see the path of growth and be destined for success!”
The event hosted interactive workshops on Mental Maps for Personal Leadership and Success by Uzma Sadaqat, Founder, Wellnesshive; and Find your Balance by Dr Tasnim Rehna, Professor, Department of Applied Psychology, NUML Islamabad.
Endorsed by leading companies
As the event of the year for tech women, WTQ 2022 was endorsed by top names in technology and other industries. This time, the event partners included names such as AWS Pakistan, NIC Karachi, Microsoft Learn Islamabad, GDG Islamabad, WomenTechmakers Lahore, PWiC, Epiphany, CaterpillHERS and PITB.
The event was sponsored by KeepTruckin, Sastaticket.pk, AWS Community Pakistan, Swvl, GiftKarte, Hunza Candles and Junkie Crafts.
