‘I’m Proud To Perform In My Country:’ Saudi Female DJ Nouf Sufyani
New
Age Islam News Bureau
20
December 2021
• Deena
Shahrabani, ,The Woman Who Helped Alexa Understand Arabic
• Muslim
Women Should Be Allowed Divorce If Husband Remarries, Fails To Give Equal
Treatment: Kerala High Court
• Iraq:
After tragedy, new freedoms, opportunities for Yazidi women
• Women-Led
Start-ups Among Finalists In PIF’s Sanabil, 500 Global Accelerator Program
• Domestic
Violence Against Women ‘Almost Satanic,’ Pope Francis Says
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/saudi-female-dj-nouf-sufyani/d/125998
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‘I’m
Proud To Perform In My Country:’ Saudi Female DJ Nouf Sufyani
Cosmicat
pictured in her studio at home in Jeddah. Supplied
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December
18, 2021
DUBAI:
Riyadh’s music festival SOUNDSTORM has returned with an exciting lineup of
international musicians, Arab pop stars, and Saudi talent, including DJ and
producer Nouf Sufyani, also known by her stage name Cosmicat.
She
told Arab News that the festival, which runs until Dec. 19, had opened a “world
of opportunities for the music community” in Saudi Arabia.
“As
local talent, we’ve got a huge opportunity now and can see a lot of artists
rising to the surface and getting the recognition they truly deserve. MDLBEAST
is a game-changer for the music industry in Saudi and the region.
“We’ve
had a thriving underground music community in Saudi for so long. Today, we can
pursue our dreams in Saudi, grow our talent through industry events and connect
with the wider regional music scene and professionals,” she said.
Jeddah
born and raised, Cosmicat produces electronic music, specifically deep house,
and techno. She grew up listening to pop, disco, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop,
the influence of all noticeable in her music selection.
“I
bought my first set of gear online and began DJing in my bedroom, using my
innate understanding of music flow and online resources to teach myself.
“I
decided to take my passion up a level with learning how to mix records and one
thing led to another. People started recognizing my sound and I was lucky
enough to pursue making music and being able to take my passion as a career,”
she added.
Her
stage name Cosmicat comes from her love for cats. “Combine that with my deep
interest in cosmology and there you have it, Cosmicat,” she said.
Being
a female DJ in the Kingdom has not been without its challenges.
“The
most challenging part is thriving in a male-dominated industry which is also
quite niche. This isn’t the case only in the region, but worldwide.
“We
never had actual career opportunities for musicians yet alone female musicians.
Now we’ve got our dreams served to us with incredible opportunities for
growth,” she added.
When
she started her music career, Cosmicat got support from her family and friends,
but some people predicted she would never go far in the industry as a Saudi
woman. “I never let it affect me – and look how far we’ve come now?” she said.
Cosmicat
took to the stage in 2019 during the first edition of MDLBEAST SOUNDSTORM, an
experience she said was a “special moment” in her career. “I’m very proud to be
able to perform in my country at one of the biggest music festivals in the
world.”
The
record producer is working on releasing an EP with three to four tracks. “It’ll
be focused on my emotional journey, but it’s still work in progress. Stay
tuned,” she added.
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1988966/lifestyle
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Deena
Shahrabani, ,The Woman Who Helped Alexa Understand Arabic
Deena
Shahrabani
----
19/December/2021
Muscat:
An Omani engineer who worked on providing Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant with
the ability to recognise and understand Arabic speech has spoken about the
efforts taken by her team and her to make Alexa smarter by making it understand
more local words and slang.
Deena
Shahrabani, a knowledge engineer who works from the UK for Amazon, was one of
four members tasked with helping Alexa understand Khaleeji Arabic, the version
of the language spoken in the Gulf. Alexa users in the United Arab Emirates and
Saudi Arabia can now issue commands in Arabic, with the service soon to be
rolled out among other Arab countries as well.
Deena
explained, “We do recognise the various ways customers can ask questions, so we
try to be as inclusive as possible to capture the most common shapes in
different dialects, so you could be understood if you use the Egyptian way of
asking ‘how many’. However, in terms of speech, we only speak Modern Standard
Arabic and Khaleeji.
“Context
is very important in understanding all languages with Alexa, and Arabic is no
exception,” she added. “We have a team of data analysts and knowledge engineers
who manually review any machine translated text and ensure we have a good level
of accuracy there. We constantly aim to enrich Alexa with more
culturally-specific idioms and phrases and I think that is definitely an area
we can work on now that we have launched in two countries.”
Deena
was one of four initial members tasked with improving Alexa’s knowledge of
Arabic: she was joined by another knowledge engineer in London, a product
manager in Dubai, and a data analyst in Cambridge. That team was supported by
other core units, including specialists in automatic speech recognition (ASR),
natural language understanding (NLU), and text to speech (TTS).
Other
engineers, who were assigned to Alexa’s responses to commands regarding prayer
times, smart home functions, and alarm calls, were also part of the team.
“My
role involves building the question and answering capabilities of Alexa and
improving her knowledge in multiple topics including prayer times, football,
and Politics,” said Deena. “So if you ask in Arabic, ‘Alexa, when does Saudi
Arabia Play?’ you should hear the answer I defined.”
“I
made sure that Alexa understands each component of that phrase and provides the
appropriate response to ultimately provide the best customer experience,” she
added. “I also worked closely with the product team to ensure we target the
highest-traffic utterances, as well as with our software engineering team to
ensure we solve any nuances with Arabic that need code modifications, for
example, in terms of the understanding of various dates.”
Born
and raised in Muscat after her father, Dr Rashid Shahrabani, moved from the UK
in 1988 to set up the Royal Hospital’s cardiology centre, Deena and her family
were granted Omani citizenship in 2000, when she was just four years old. She
graduated from the Sultan School, and joined Amazon in 2019, as part of their
Graduate Retail Programme. Realising she wanted a more technical role, however,
Deena joined the Alexa International team a year later to help launch Alexa in
Arabic, which she says is one of the hardest languages to learn.
Her
native connection to the language and keenness to take on the responsibility
thrust upon her attracted Deena to the role, but fresh challenges came in the
form of the hurdles brought up by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Late
nights are not unheard of when working on hard projects that might also require
working with colleagues in California,” she admitted. “It is quite flexible and
I really felt the autonomy to work at your own time at Amazon as long as the
job is done. Flexible working is probably the best thing to come out of the
pandemic - although it can go the other way.”
“We
started work-from-home at Amazon in the UK quite early on in March 2020, and
since have not been required to work in the office,” she added. “As my team is
really global, I think working remotely is quite the norm with most meetings
held virtually. Travel is one thing that affected us as quarterly off-sites
were something unique about the role, where we’d all meet in a certain city
every few months and reconnect with our colleagues.”
Deena
revealed, “My job was very exciting but not easy by any means: Arabic was the
first right-to-left language we launched, and there were many nuances unique to
Arabic such as diacritics which increase the number of homonyms greatly.
Disambiguating different words that share the same spelling was an important
part of the launch.”
Having
now established herself at one of the world’s biggest tech companies, and on
the forefront of cutting-edge innovation, Deena has some advice for other
Omanis, who want to make a name for themselves.
Selling
points
“Definitely
focus on your unique selling points,” she said. “I have always searched for
Arabic-speaking roles when looking at jobs abroad as I knew it would give me an
edge. The UK is not the easiest of countries to sponsor international
applicants, so I would definitely focus on nailing a few years of experience in
your home country, before applying for a global transfer or an application
abroad.”
“Continuously
learning and building your confidence through online courses is definitely a
plus,” she added. “I think tech roles are still the most demanded among
professions, and having a good foundation will help you sail forward.”
Source:
Times of Oman
https://timesofoman.com/article/110771-meet-the-woman-who-helped-alexa-understand-arabic
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Muslim
women should be allowed divorce if husband remarries, fails to give equal
treatment: Kerala High Court
Rickson
Oommen
December
18, 2021
The
Kerala High Court on Saturday said that Muslim women should be granted divorce
when the husband has remarried and is not giving equal consideration and
providing similar living conditions. The Quran insists on equal treatment of
wives, the court observed. The court said that if this is violated, women
should be granted a divorce.
The
court was making these observations while hearing the plea from a Thalassery
native demanding a divorce from her husband who has remarried and lives
separately from her. Her plea in the Thalassery family court was declined to
prompt her to bring the case before the High Court.
The
division bench consisting of Justice A Muhammad Mushtaq and Justice Sofie
Thomas said that as per Muslim Divorce Act Section 2 (8) (F), the woman should
be allowed divorce when the first wife is being ignored after the husband
remarries. The husband not giving the petitioner protection for over two years
is grounds enough to grant a divorce.
The
woman had petitioned for divorce back in 2019. She has been living separately
from her husband since 2014. The husband claims to have been providing her
support during the period.
The
court, however, observed that they were living separately for years itself
shows that the first wife isn't given the same consideration. The husband also
doesn't claim to have lived with the wife after 2014. Not living with the wife
and failure to do his marital duties is a violation of what the Quran says. The
first wife was granted a divorce by the high court.
Source:
India Today
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Iraq:
After tragedy, new freedoms, opportunities for Yazidi women
18.12.2021
Cathrin
Schaer
"We
really appreciate your visit," Luqman Suleiman told a group of tourists
from around Iraq and Germany recently, when he met them at the entrance of the
Yazidi temple, Lalish. For the ethno-religious Iraqi minority this site in
northern Iraq is the equivalent of the Vatican to Catholics, or Mecca to
Muslims. Every Yazidi is expected to come here at least once in their lifetime.
And these days, more outsiders are coming here too.
"It
is really so important that people come here and listen to the Yazidis,"
Suleiman, a spokesperson and guide at the temple, said. "You shouldn't
listen to other people. They may speak falsely about us."
Suleiman
was talking about long-standing prejudices against his community in Iraq. Their
highly secretive and ritualistic religion — traditions and rules are passed on
orally and outsiders are prohibited from knowing most of them — has made the
minority a target of the Muslim majority in the country.
The
Yazidi faith has been described as "dualist" because they believe
that good and evil are part of the same divinity. This is also why some Iraqis
have described them as "devil worshippers" and, for example, won't
eat any food prepared by Yazidi hands.
It is
the same sort of prejudice that made the small religious community, which is
thought to number around half a million inside Iraq, a target for the extremist
group known as the "Islamic State" (IS). As the extremists took over swathes of the
country in 2014, the minority's marginal status was part of the reason why the
IS militants felt they could kill, rape and enslave thousands of members of the
community with impunity.
Unexpected
outcomes
The
Yazidi minority was forever changed by the IS group's brutal assault on them.
By the time the extremists were more or less pushed out of northern Iraq in
2017, thousands of Yazidis had been killed or kidnapped. Several international
bodies now classify the events as a genocide. Today, around 240,000 are still
living in camps for the displaced, many in grinding poverty.
But
the community has also changed in some ways that were perhaps not quite so
predictable.
"The
Yazidi community has transformed toward more openness," said Murad Ismael,
head of the Sinjar Academy, an institute in northern Iraq providing education
to locals in the area. "The Yazidi community has nothing to hide but I
believe, in the past, many thought it was better to not discuss identity or
faith. I also think the world today is more passionate and supportive to the
Yazidis, which encourages them to be more open."
Newfound
freedoms
One
noticeable change has come in Yazidi women's rights, Suleiman told his curious
visitors.
"Before
the IS group came, a woman was not free to leave her village without a male
guardian," Suleiman said. "But after the IS time, people have more of
an open mind. Women can leave their village and catch a plane to Europe, if
they want to," he said, smiling and gesturing at the sky above the hills
surrounding the 4,000-year-old temple.
"In
the past, the community would not have accepted that," confirmed Naven
Symoqi, a Yazidi activist and journalist from Sinjar, the district where many
Iraqi Yazidis reside. " But after many Yazidis became displaced, they
ended up in different parts of Iraq and they saw different ways of doing
things."
That
experience, said a local in northern Iraq, who worked with Yazidis in a
displaced persons' camp, has had impact. "Imagine if you come from a really
isolated agricultural community without many resources, where many people were
not educated beyond primary school level. And then you've been displaced,
you're in a camp, and there are all these NGOs running programs on education
and women's rights," the source told DW. The person requested anonymity in
order to speak candidly about the community with which they still work.
Women
drivers
Symoqi
marvels at the fact there are now driving schools for women in town. She also
knows of Yazidi women studying at universities and praises Amera Atto, a Yazidi
who competed in 2021's Miss Iraq contest.
Yazidi
women involved in local survivor networks are also doing things they never
would have before, such as traveling to cities to meet male politicians to
discuss justice and compensation.
Because
of the murders of their male relatives, many Yazidi women became heads of their
own households, pointed out Abid Shamdeen, executive director of Nadia's
Initiative.
His
nonprofit organization, founded by Nadia Murad, a Yazidi survivor and Nobel
Peace Prize recipient, has been able to help Yazidi women set up their own
small businesses, rebuild homes and access education. "We have seen that
these kinds of projects have a profoundly positive impact on Yazidi women,"
Shamdeen told DW. "After IS' destruction, Yazidi women have very much
taken the lead in advocating on behalf of their community, both locally and
globally."
Yazidi
women are also benefiting from better access to education and job
opportunities, the Sinjar Academy's Ismael added. "There are more women
employed and some even own small businesses or lead NGOs. This is really
something new to the Yazidis of Iraq."
Underage
marriage
Despite
it's awful origins, this new attitude could be seen as a positive development.
The Yazidi religion has strict rules. You cannot convert into it, nor can you
leave it. Adherents may not even marry out of their own caste within the
community, let alone outside of the religion.
In
one high-profile case from 2007, Dua Khalil Aswad, a young Yazidi woman, who
was thought to have converted to Islam for love was beaten to death in public,
including by members of her own family.
In
2011, after a growing number of suicides among young Yazidi females,
researchers from the International Organization for Migration conducted
community interviews to find out why this was happening. They concluded
"the marginalization of women and the view of the woman's role as
peripheral" were to blame, alongside isolation, unhappy arranged
marriages, unemployment among females and community and sectarian tensions.
More
to come
Still,
community members told DW that, despite recent changes, much remains to be
done.
For
one thing, the former camps worker explained, there's still a big difference
between the way Yazidi survivors and other women in the community are treated.
"Some
are welcomed back by their families, others are not. Although the community
doesn't like to talk about it like this, it's a bit of a disaster," the
source said. "And all this [the new rights Yazidi women have] is still
only possible with the permission of male family members. It's still deeply
patriarchal here. Then again," they concluded, " these things take
time. And once people are given opportunities, it's very hard to take them away
again."
"Definitely
there is still some social friction," Ismael agreed. "It will take
time and education," he argued. "But I think in many ways Yazidi
women led by example, during and after the genocide. [They] were at the
forefront of everything that happened and in many ways became symbols of the
people."
Source:
DW News
https://www.dw.com/en/new-freedoms-yazidi-women/a-60130898
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Women-Led
Start-ups Among Finalists In PIF’s Sanabil, 500 Global Accelerator Program
December
19, 2021
RIYADH:
Sanabil Investments, wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund, and 500
Global, a leading global venture capital firm on Sunday unveiled 11 startups in
the second batch of the Sanabil 500 MENA Seed Accelerator Program 2021.
Female
founders lead a third of the batch, signaling 500 Global’s commitment to
continue supporting diversity. The program provides pre-seed and seed-stage
startups across the Middle East and North Africa with the foundation they need
to validate and scale their business regionally and globally.
Selected
out of 500 applicants, the finalists are working in a diverse range of sectors,
including fintech, ecommerce, NFT, health tech, and real estate tech.
“The
Sanabil 500 MENA Seed Accelerator aims to create a resilient, integrated, and
sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem that attracts young companies from around
the region and contributes to its growth. We’re excited to support such
talented founders as they embark on a promising journey,” said Bedy Yang,
managing partner at 500 Global.
More
than 60 percent have their main operations in Saudi Arabia or have a founder of
Saudi origin, while startups without headquarters in the country have indicated
their intent to establish operations in Saudi Arabia within the next three
years.
“Our
11 finalists reflect the evolving breadth and depth of today’s entrepreneurial
ambitions and where founders believe their products and services could soon
make a difference in our everyday lives,” said a Sanabil spokesperson.
The
12-week program, which concluded in Riyadh with Demo Day, offered founders
dedicated mentorship with a focus on business strategy development,
fundraising, and growth.
Following
is the list of the batch 2 startups:
Bringy:
Enables customers to purchase and claim insurance online with a few simple
clicks.
Nuqtah:
NFT marketplace for creatives in Saudi Arabia.
Ameen:
Licensed therapist in the comfort of your home.
Jingle
Pay: Digital banking app that simplifies expats' everyday financial needs.
Below:
Direct-to-consumer focused on below-the-waist hygiene products for men in MENA.
Playbook:
Edutainment platform and professional network that accelerates career
progression for women.
Nitros:
Multicarrier shipping software empowering online merchants to automate their
shipping operations.
Letswork:
A marketplace and digital membership that connects users to on-demand
workspaces, private offices and meeting rooms.
Juleb:
SaaS for pharmacies that helps increase their sales and guarantees compliance
through an enterprise resource planning system that streamlines point of sale
processes.
TeamUp:
Event management app for organizing and sharing sports competitions.
Twinn
Health: Enables early disease detection using imaging and AI tools to extend a
healthy human lifespan.
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1989686/business-economy
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Domestic
violence against women ‘almost satanic,’ Pope Francis says
20
Dec 2021
Pope
Francis has said that men who commit violence against women engage in something
that is “almost satanic”.
He
made the comment, some of the strongest language he has used to condemn such
violence, during a programme broadcast on Sunday night on Italy’s TG5 network
in which he conversed with three women and a man, all with difficult
backgrounds.
“The
number of women who are beaten and abused in their homes, even by their
husbands, is very, very high,” Francis said in answer to a question by a woman
named Giovanna, a victim of domestic violence.
“The
problem is that, for me, it is almost satanic because it is taking advantage of
a person who cannot defend herself, who can only (try to) block the blows,” he
said. “It is humiliating. Very humiliating.”
Giovanna
said that she had four children to care for after they escaped from a violent
home.
Since
the Covid-19 pandemic began nearly two years ago, Francis has several times
spoken out against domestic violence, which has increased in many countries
since lockdowns left many women trapped with their abusers.
Police
figures released last month showed that there are about 90 episodes of violence
against women in Italy every day and that 62 per cent were cases of domestic
violence.
Francis
said women who were beaten and abused had not lost their dignity. “I see
dignity in you because if you didn’t have dignity, you wouldn’t be here,” he
told Giovanna.
Turning
to other examples of human misery, he listened to a homeless woman speak of
life on the street and a man trying to get back on his feet after 25 years in
jail.
Francis
has set up services in the area around the Vatican to give Rome’s homeless
healthcare, bathing, and hair-cutting facilities.
In
2020, when a palazzo just off St. Peter’s Square that was once a convent became
vacant, he ordered it to be turned into a homeless shelter, overruling
suggestions that it be converted into a luxury hotel.
Source:
Khaleej Times
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/domestic-violence-against-women-almost-satanic-pope-francis-says
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