Mona Nabil Demaidi did her MSc in Software Engineering and Data Management at the University of Manchester, UK  and PhD between Birmingham City University and the University of Manchester, UK with a specialization in Advanced Software Engineering. Mona joined An-najah National University in 2016, to become the youngest female with a PhD certificate at the faculty of engineering and Information Technology. Her research focuses on building personalized learning environments using machine learning. In 2018,  she published a book and two journal papers which introduces a new platform for auto-generating assessment questions using semantic web. Besides her academic work, Mona is an active member of several societies which globally support women in the technology sector. She has been working with Women in Engineering and Arab Women in computing since 2014, and in 2017 she became the first female supervisor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)  at An-najah national university student branch. Being a key part in such societies, Mona organized several initiatives which aim to empower women and reduce the unemployment rate in Palestine. In the technology sector in Palestine, the number of undergraduates females is high, however,  in the tech industry, the unemployment rate for women is 60% which is three times more compared with males. Mona studied the reasons behind the high percentage and started applying several activities at the university and in the Palestinian community, to encourage women and help them improve their technical and communication skills. Currently, the IEEE committee at the university has more than 50%, female members. In addition, in most of the technical activities held by IEEE, females form more than 57%.  Besides IEEE, Mona is working on encouraging women to attend regional conferences in the MENA region by helping them apply for scholarships to attend the Arab Women in Computing conference which is the biggest conference in the region that celebrates and support women. Mona believes that exposing Palestinian undergraduate women to regional and international experiences is essential, as it helps them enhance their communication and networking skills. Moreover, attending such events will have a great impact on Palestinian society, as women will have equal job opportunities as males.  

Mona's ambition to help Palestinian women was not limited to Palestine or the MENA region. She was always looking for opportunities to improve the network for Palestinian women and help them conncet with Europe and USA.  Therefore, In 2019, Mona became the co-managing director for Girls in Tech in Palestine which is the first chapter in the MENA region. Currently, Mona is integrating all material provided by Girls in Tech to support women in Palestine by giving them free online courses from the top technology companies worldwide and providing them with access to international job openings and mentoring opportunities. Mona believes that gender equality in the tech industry could only be achieved when women in Palestine have all the local and international support they need from a very young age.