World
International Women’s Day: Saudi engineer says inspired by female role models
The leadership commitment, VISION 2030 and “the fast developments in the Kingdom over the past years enabled me and all Saudi women to aim even higher,” GE’s Outage Planning Engineer Kawther Alkhalifah told Al Arabiya English ahead of Women’s Day 2023.
The recent announcement to send the first Saudi female astronaut, Rayyanah Barnawi, to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2023, excited the Saudi professional who works in a challenging role as Outage Planning Engineer with GE Gas Power, in the Kingdom’s city of Dammam.
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Ahead of International Women’s Day celebrated annually on March 8, Alkhalifah said many female role models in Saudi Arabia and across the region inspired her to pursue a career in STEM.
“There are many female role models in my home country of Saudi Arabia, across the region and globally that inspired me to pursue a career in STEM,” she told Al Arabiya English.
“With my family support, I studied overseas which gave me the opportunity to study a major in engineering which wasn’t available for females in the early 2000s.”
She added: “Saudi Arabia is empowering women to seek new areas of study in STEM disciplines. Scholarships are given to study abroad and different engineering majors for females have also been opened such as those now available in the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) and Effat University. What keeps me excited and inspired are the rapid developments and new milestones that females in the Kingdom are achieving.”
Journey from graduation to GE
Alkhalifah graduated from Arkansas Tech University in the US in August 2013, and her first job was as a Project Coordination Engineer coordinating between the Standardization Department customer team and vendors to get spares parts data packages.
GE’s Outage Planning Engineer Kawther Alkhalifah. (Supplied)
In 2015, she Joined the GE Gas Power through Graduate Management Program (GMP) which is one of the leadership programs – a 12-month program that prepares recently qualified graduates for a successful career in their chosen discipline within the organization.
“In this role, I served as a Customer Service Engineer helping key customers in the Kingdom, tracking and providing support on technical matters. During this program, I led the efforts of the On-site Monitoring Server Project to connect customer’s Gas turbines to the Monitoring and Diagnostic Center (M&D) in Dammam,” she explained.
According to the engineer, new job opportunities were created with the opening of this center which required the applicant to have technical background of gas turbines.
“I was interested to apply for this job, so I began to strengthen my technical knowledge by taking several online courses, engaging with the engineering team, and visiting sites whenever there is an outage, and where the gas turbine is unboxed,” Alkhalifah said.
In 2016, she joined the M&D center as a First Tier Engineer. For this role, she says she received training for two weeks at the GE office in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I worked with customer engineers to validate alarms and analyze matters for the different connected gas turbines in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this job is to support the operation of the gas turbine and provide real time diagnostics. Apart from this role, I was interested to work with the RAM (Reliability, Availability, and Modelling) team in GE where I started to work on more sites and started to consolidate best practices, preventive, and corrective actions for larger fleet.”
In 2019, Alkhalifah joined the Outage Planning team to support outages for global sites located in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe (MENA).
“I work on planning prior to scheduled outage which is the date when the gas turbines are shut down for maintenance,” she said. “In this role, I am responsible for identifying engineering recommendations on technical matters. Outage time is an opportunity to resolve issues and to apply upgrades and modifications to the machines.”
Alkhalifah continued to work on RAM+ project and began leading this effort for customer sites in the Middle East. She explained how she went about her effort: “I am always looking to learn and expand my knowledge. Therefore, I want to be an expert in one area of the gas turbine. Consequently, I started to take biweekly learning sessions with my mentor on the hot gas path section of the gas turbine. I also started to work with the processing team to improve the data quality and have better insights on the fleet.”
She also commented on GE’s corporate culture which has helped her to take up a leadership role in her chosen field.
“GE always supports its employees by advancing their knowledge and leadership skills through different technical and leadership courses. I am grateful to my manager who saw a spark in me, which encouraged me to lead calls with the customer and take ownership in providing solutions to our customers,” she told Al Arabiya English.
“Motivation and willingness to learn are important key factors that can help a woman succeed in the Tech sector, as well as being courageous to seek new roles,” Alkhalifah says.
She also discussed the personal support systems that helped her progress in her career.
“My family supported me when I chose to major in mechanical engineering, and they hoped that new opportunities will arise in the country for females. And now my husband and all my loved ones continue to support me whenever I need encouragement and support,” Alkhalifah said.
On International Women’s Day, the Saudi engineer wanted to give other young women who wants to take up careers in STEM a message.
“The world is changing rapidly, and new innovations and technologies are transforming every aspect of our lives,” she said. “A new range of careers have also come up, so I really urge more women to seize such opportunities. Also, by having more women in STEM fields, we can bridge the gender gaps that will bring new ideas and skillsets to the workplace.”
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