Blue Ocean Academy, the region’s leading knowledge empowerment enterprise, honoured Dr. Zulekha Daud with a lifetime achievement award on international women's day. The award distribution was held at Crowne Plaza on Blue Ocean Women Leadership Development (BOWLD) EmpowHer series of the conference.

Speaking at the event, Dr. Zulekha said, “I started my career in the UAE when there was no advanced technology in the healthcare sector but I overcame all challenges and stayed back because all I had in my mind was a room full of patients. We shouldn’t just give prescriptions to our patients, what we should give is compassion.” Dr. Zulekha, the founder and chairperson of Zulekha Healthcare Group has around 30 years of experience in the field of healthcare.

As part of expressing solidarity with the global initiatives and celebrations on the international women’s day, Blue Ocean Academy conducted an exclusive conference for women in corporate. Hundreds of top women professionals converged to attend the Blue Ocean Women Leadership Development (BOWLD) EmpowHer Conference held on March 8, 2020. The conference focussed on the theme ‘Women in Corporate-Breaking the glass ceiling’.

Prominent women speakers including Jennifer Randive, Dr. Vandana Gandhi and Nuha Luqman gave insightful talks on topics like leadership, entrepreneurship, and health.

Dr. Alka Kalra, who received the Excellence in Education Award in the event appreciated Blue Ocean Academy for demonstrating the success stories of women for others to take the first step towards excellence. Several other women also received awards for their valuable contributions in their respective fields.

“We at Blue Ocean always encourage our female staff to go beyond their limits and foster gender equality at the workplace. BOWLD is a conference organized by the female staff of Blue Ocean, for the prominent women leaders and motivate them to rise into leadership positions”, says Abdul Azeez, Managing Director at Blue Ocean Academy.

UAE has always been a role model to the world in terms of exhibiting exemplary efforts for bringing more women into leadership positions. The recent example is Al Hashemi, Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director-General of Expo 2020 Dubai. She is in charge of the first World Expo in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia region (MEASA). Even half of the workforce of Expo 200 is women, which shows the country’s sincere attempts to take the glass ceiling down.

Being in the UAE for more than 20 years, Blue Ocean is privileged to come up with initiatives for developing leadership in women and recognizing their efforts. “Women have a lot of opportunities to succeed in the UAE as the government is introducing several initiatives to encourage emerging leaders. Blue Ocean has created a platform for working women to speak, motivate and empower each other. BOWLD conference was also an opportunity to recognize the extraordinary efforts of a couple of ordinary women,” said Dr. Sathya Menon- Executive Director at Blue Ocean Academy.

While speaking on the occasion, Disha Gaikwad (Manager-Corporate Relations at Blue Ocean Academy) said, “the UAE government has been continuously taking efforts in empowering women in fields like healthcare, education, and transportation. The nation's vision is to be in the topmost 25 countries across the globe in gender equality by 2021 and Blue Ocean would like to take this opportunity to offer our sincere contribution towards this vision”.