[News] Nihal Djebli, Moroccan Female Pioneer in Male-Dominated IT Sector

[Revo]

 

 

Rabat - Leading by example, Nihal Djebli provides space and opportunity for young Moroccan girls and women interested in the IT and digital sector to unleash their potential.

Born in Marrakech before moving to Casablanca, Nihal Djabeli is the passionate owner of digital wedding planning platform Chicadresse and Director-General of the Association of Information Systems Users in Morocco (AUSIM). 

Educated in strategic marketing, Djabeli obtained a bachelor's degree from Morocco’s Higher School of Commerce (2001-2005) and her master's from the Toulouse School of Management (2005-2006).

Developing a passion for event planning from a young age, after graduating Djabeli worked as an event manager for Prestigia, a luxury real estate brand, and later at the International Film Festival of Marrakech. 

This experience allowed her to build expertise in event planning before launching Chicadresse in 2013,  an innovative platform providing advice and information to young couples planning their weddings. 

Building Chicadresse has strengthened Djabeli’s leadership and management skills and sharpened her sense of creativity and responsibility.

From entrepreneur to director-general 
In 2019, Nihal Djabeli joined AUSIM as Director-General. The association supports more than 100 member organizations in the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors in their implementation of digital transformation projects. 

“AUSIM is a major institution that has been working since 1993 to promote IT and digital in Morocco. Contributing to the influence of this group of leading companies and structures is a source of pride; working on projects with high added value is a noble mission,” Djebli told Morocco World News. 

“I have always been passionate about the digital field, my dissertation focused on a subject related to E-parity in the field of New Technologies with UNWomen,” she added.

Empowering Moroccan girls, businesses
AUSIM has launched four programs to help businesses, high schoolers, and university students keep up with the latest developments in the information technology and digital sector. The programs consist of AUSAiducation, AUSAcademy, AUSInnov, and AUSMose. 

While AUSAcademy and AUSMose focus on member organizations, AUSAiducation and AUSInnov prioritize youth training and sponsorship. 

The four programs push for the development of the Moroccan economy and IT sector as well as the training and empowerment of Moroccan girls and women.

“At AUSIM, women have their place. She is a leader, she is inspiring, she is responsible, she fights for the rights of other young girls and for an inclusive Morocco through digital,” Nihal Djebli told MWN. “Several AUSIM events are targeting women and girls.”

Through expert-led training and thematic clubs, AUSAcademy and AUSMose push for the sharing of expertise between professionals in different economic sectors. 

As part of the AUSMose program, the association organizes "Cyber4D Academy - Social Impact" to train youth in digital professions related to cybersecurity and data analytics.  “60% of the [program’s] 1st class (23 students) consisted of young girls,” stated the director-general. 

Additionally, AUSAiducation and AUSInnov work on assisting the future generation of professionals in IT and engineering. AUSAiducation provides “excellence scholarships intended for baccalaureate graduates from backgrounds with limited means to boost their career,” said Djebli. 

“The program now has 11 scholarship holders, 10 of whom are enrolled in major engineering schools in Morocco and abroad,” she added.

An interesting criterion of the program is the gender-based admission quota – 60% girls and 40% boys. While the quota might be considered discriminative, it encourages female representation in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as IT and engineering. 

Notably, Moroccan “women have more difficulty than men in finding employment at an equivalent level of education.”  

Thus, programs such as AUSAiducation open new opportunities for young girls and women in the country to build careers in male-dominated sectors.

In addition to AUSAiducation, AUSInnov organizes annually a competition for engineers from Moroccan universities to promote innovation in the IT and digital sectors. The winners receive coaching and funding to implement their ideas and establish startups. 

Through training, funding, and networking, AUSIM pioneers digitization efforts within the Moroccan economy, supporting Morocco’s 2025 digital development strategy as well as promoting female representation in the IT and digital sector.

Hope for gender parity in Morocco
“It is true that women are still not very present in the IT sector and their representation is far from any idea of parity. It is a male-dominated sector for several reasons but this is certainly likely to change with future generations,” Djebli told MWN. 

As IT and engineering professions are considered “technical,” they “have always been reserved for men,” she explained, noting the bravery of certain girls and women who have questioned this social stigma and have tried to build an inclusive Morocco.

With the promotion of female participation in the sector and the emergence of new professionalism, girls and women now have more work opportunities. “They are moving more and more towards professions such as data analyst, data scientist, AI…or even towards digital marketing,” she said. 

Yet the fight for equal representation remains an ongoing battle. “We will continue to work hand in hand with the women and men of AUSIM to ensure a better future for future generations; generations of the metaverse, AI, the cloud… where women will certainly have their place and where the debate will no longer be focused on parity, finally, I hope,” Djebli concluded.