On the 7th of March, on the occasion of International Women's Day, the French Embassy in Azerbaijan, in partnership with the Azerbaijan-France Chamber of Commerce, the French-Azerbaijani University (UFAZ) and the French Institute organized a panel discussion on the "Journey of woman in business and engineering" at UFAZ premises,

The event, opened by H.E Mrs Anne Boillon, Ambassador of France to Azerbaijan, Mr. Vazeh Asgarov, Director of the French-Azerbaijani University, and H.E Mr. Peter Michalko, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, featured the journey of women in Azerbaijan and France in business and engineering.

The two keynote speakers from Azerbaijan and France gave very inspirational speeches : Mrs. Maryam Majidova, Co-founder and Executive Director of “Gender Hub”, French-German Gender Equality Contest laureate and Mrs. Marie-Christine Oghly, Deputy-chairman in charge of international affairs at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris Ile-de-France and Chairman of FCEM (Pioneer association uniting women business owners around the world) . They recalled the progress observed for gender equality in the world of science, technology and engineering. They emphasised the need to raise awareness among men at an early stage and the importance of strengthening women networks - because “alone we’re invisible, but together we’re invincible” as Mrs. Marie-Christine Oghly said.

The three distinguished panelists, Mrs. Dilara Tomtiyeva (Entrepreneur, master of biochemistry engineering), Mrs. Sevinj Gulmaliyeva (CEO, Mega Insurance), and Mrs. Sona Guliyeva (GIS trainer at Azercosmos and National Aviation Academy), shared their own experiences and exchanged with the audience composed of students from different schools and universities in Baku and women working in various line of business. Our panelists’ experiences prompted a lot of comments and questions from the audience.

“Women’s Day is everyday” – Mrs. Maryam Majidova