BY KAREN PANETTA Eye on Dubai: An Engineering Oasis WORLD CLASS ENGINEERS AND FACILITIES DRIVE THE CITY'S TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES When we hear about Dubai, one of the Emirates of the United Arab Emirates, the first thing that comes to mind is a tropical paradise for tourists and golf enthusiasts and indoor ski slopes. What we don't hear about is the Dubai that is an engineer's dream for its astounding industrial and technological innovations. Dubai has successfully accomplished some of the most unique and complex engineering feats in the world. As the WIE Chair, I was fortunate to visit Dubai and meet with some of Dubai's most prominent engineers and technology leaders, esteemed professors and IEEE student volunteers from several Dubai Universities. Regardless of whom I met, the first thing I noticed was the profound amount of respect the citizens of Dubai have for their leaders. Sheikh Rashid is considered the Father of Dubai. He was a visionary that thought far beyond the capabilities of his day and carried out the most complex engineering projects with unparalleled success. When communicating his ideas to engineers, it was not uncommon for him to draw out projects in the plentiful sand around him. Sheikh Rashid truly utilized the "back of the envelope" engineering approach, without using even the envelope. My mission during my visit was twofold. I wanted to hear firsthand the stories of women engineers working in Dubai and to understand how culture differences affect women's careers. I also wanted to see what career opportunities exist for IEEE fields of interest within Dubai's major corporations. My first visit was to Dubal, the Dubai aluminum company. Dubal's facility includes an aluminum smelter that is one of the largest single site smelters in the western world. It includes a power station with an installed capacity of 1,450 megawatts and a desalination plant capable of producing 30 million PHOTO COURTESY OF JAMIE A. HELLER W Silicon Oasis is one of Dubai's many stunning architectural accomplishments. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2008.925799 24 IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE SUMMER 2008 1942-065X/08/$25.00©2008 IEEE