AIWF President & Founder Haifa Al Kaylani OBE was delighted to be invited on Monday 27 May by the President of The RAK Medical and Health Sciences University (RAKMHSU), Professor Ismail Matalka, to visit the university’s outstanding medical centre of excellence in the UAE. It was a pleasure to brief Professor Matalka about AIWF’s longstanding cooperation with global and regional entities in the area of empowering women leaders in health and STEM and to share our valued partnership with Pfizer which has been a Global Corporate Partner of AIWF for over a decade now.
RAKMHSU was set up under the visionary leadership of His Highness Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah with the aim of not just building schools or colleges, but to lay a foundation for an educational infrastructure that will serve as a platform for global institutions to provide world-class training to the students across the region.
The visit was a valuable opportunity to brief Professor Matalka on our recent achievements and work with Pfizer in the UAE and in Saudi Arabia. In the years of our partnership, AIWF and Pfizer Middle East have proudly collaborated on highly successful initiatives such as the ‘Women on the Frontline in the Fight Against Covid-19’ webinar held in July 2020; the ‘Women Leaders in Health’ conference held at the American University in Beirut Medical School in April 2019, in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Medical School and PwC; and the ‘Women-Led Innovation in STEM’ conference held at the Royal Academy of Engineering in December 2017 which brought the World Bank and Shell on board as event partners.
Most recently, as a flagship project of the AIWF / Pfizer Annual Partnership in 2022-2023, our organisations also collaborated on a virtual panel series exploring salient diversity issues impacting women’s inclusion in global and MENA health – (i) the importance of mentoring and nurturing the next generation of women leaders in health through role modelling, recognition and visibility of women in discovery, research and innovation; (ii) addressing the gender pay and leadership gap; and (iii) driving diversity in the innovation landscape, including an exploration of the impact of enhanced diversity on clinical trials. The sessions were held in December 2022, February 2023, and June 2023, and the initiative culminated in a report and recommendations published jointly by AIWF and Pfizer in November 2023.
Further, in 2024-2025, AIWF and Pfizer Saudi are collaborating on a very special follow-up series with a focus on DEI and women’s leadership in the health sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Through this series we will bring women in the health sector together to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities for women in this sector, highlighting opportunities and scope for cross-cultural and experience exchange.
AIWF looks forward to all valued cooperation with RAKMHSU in the future and commend their innovative and groundbreaking efforts to provide world-class training and education to the next generation of leaders in medicine and health sciences. To find out more about the University, please visit https://www.rakmhsu.ac.ae
All Images: RAKMHSU
