On World IP Day: Arab League empowers women’s creativity and innovation

CAIRO – 3 May 2018: On World Intellectual Property Day, which falls on April 26 annually, the intellectual property rights and means to protect them are the subject of numerous activities and events worldwide.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a Geneva-based international organization, has set this day to raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademark and designs impact life and celebrate great innovators and creators. WIPO specify a specific theme for the International Day yearly.

The Arab League celebrated the Intellectual day this year through holding conferences, seminars and workshops under the theme of “encouraging women’s creativity and innovation”, the theme which was set by the WIPO.

“Empowering Change: Women in Innovation and Creativity” was one of the conferences, held in the Arab League in collaboration with SMAS-IP, a firm that specializes in intellectual property across the Middle East, featuring renowned and distinguished experts on the subject.

Intellectual Property rights professionals including the head ofthe Intellectual Property and Competitiveness Unit of the Economic Sector at the General Secretariat of the Arab League, MahaBekheit, the head of the Intellectual Property and Competitiveness Unit of the Economic Sector at the General Secretariat of the Arab League and the manager of the WIPO Regional Bureau for Arab countries Waleed Abdel Nasser delivered keynote speeches at the conference.

The conference discussed the importance of empowering Arab women’s IP rights to secure their contributions to Arab culture and innovation. It also covered the main challenges that women face in IP through presenting high-level delegates from a number of Arab countries who talk about these challenges and examples of women’s success stories.

Bekheit talked about the status of Arab women in scientific and technological knowledge and the challenges they face in Arab societies. “The purpose of this conference is to highlight the importance of women’s rights in the Arab world in terms of intellectual property to ensure their contribution and to benefit from their creative and innovative skills in achieving economic, social, and cultural development,” she said.

“The share of women in Arab countries studying science rose 7 percent during the last 10 years,”Bekheit quoted the UNESCO report.

There was an exchange of views, experiences and lessons learned, aiming to enrich tools and instruments and strategies which aimed at promoting, encouraging and enhancing women’s innovation and creativity in the Arab world.

However, even before specifying “encouraging women’s innovation and creativity” as the theme of World IP Day in 2018, the Arab Leagueorganized a regional workshop on the same theme at the league’s headquarters in Cairo in May 2017.

The stance of Arab women in the fields of innovation, science, and technology has improved over recent years.

International sources have reported that Arab women’s participation in these sectors reached 37 percent in 2017, which is nearly the same percentage as that of the more-developed economies. So many efforts are still needed in enhancing women’s participation innovation and creativity.