MAX Women in Leadership: Illuminating the Path for Innovation

Date: Friday, October 3, 2024
Start Time: 5:30 pm
Location: Torys Office - 79 Wellington St W #3300, Toronto, ON M5K 1N2

Sponsored Venue: We’re excited to host this event at the Torys Office, a generous contribution from Torys, highlighting their commitment to fostering excellence for muslim women in leadership.

Join us for the MAX Women in Leadership STEM Panel and Workshop, a unique event dedicated to highlighting and celebrating Muslim women who are setting the stage for generations to come by creating an innovative and better tomorrow. Listen to the stories of today's leaders of women in STEM breaking down barriers in leadership and shaping the world through innovation. Our event creates a space where inspiration meets action and fosters a dialogue for muslim women by muslim women.

Moderator:
Dr. Melaina T Vinski | Associate Client Partner, Behavioural Science & Gen AI Lead, IBM

Speakers:

• Dr. Najma Ahmed | Surgeon-in-Chief, St. Michael’s Hospital
• Huda Idrees | Founder & CEO, Dot Health
• Yolande Dufresne | Counsel, Intellectual Property, Torys LLP
• Dr. Malak Elbatarny | Cardiac Surgery Resident, University of Toronto

Workshop Leader:
Noureen Syed | Client Partner, Microsoft Practice, IBM

Muslim Achieving Excellence (MAX) was founded with the aim to recognize, reward, celebrate and motivate high achievement and encourage positive and productive contributions to society by Muslims in Canada. MAX fosters that through creating connections between senior level, mid level and early career professionals.

In keeping with the overarching vision to elevate the brand of Canadian Muslims, MAX Women In Leadership is a program with a mission to celebrate, inspire and cultivate leadership excellence in North American-Muslim women. The program focuses on Recognition, Leadership, and Network & Partnerships, thereby connecting and mobilizing Muslim women across North America to institute a strong and sustainable network.

Note: Dinner will be served

For any attendees who may have financial needs and require a sponsored complimentary ticket, or for any questions or comments please contact:

Sara Hosseini | Managing Director, Women in Leadership | [email protected]

Website: onemax.org | LinkedIn: MAX | Twitter: @max_gala | Instagram: @max.gala

Note: All ticket sales are final

Workshop Leader: Noureen Syed

Noureen Syed is a Client Partner within IBM Consulting. Noureen leads a practice team focused on helping Canadian organizations accelerate adoption of Data & AI, Analytics, Automation, and emerging tech like Blockchain and Quantum to drive impactful transformations that are a catalyst of their innovation, customer service, business and operational efficiency goals.

Previously, Noureen held various other roles at Microsoft as a Customer Success Director and Market Strategy Lead, spending over 10 years within Microsoft Enterprise Services building on her passion for customer-centricity to drive customer digital transformations. Noureen obtained a Bachelor of Computer Engineering with a Management Sciences option from the University of Waterloo.

Moderator: Dr. Melaina T. Vinski

Dr. Melaina T. Vinski is an Associate Client Partner of Behavioural Science and Generative AI Lead in Financial Services at IBM. Melaina is a behavioural science and behaviour change specialist with over a decade of experience in the experimental study of cognitive neuroscience and human behaviour.

As the former Behavioural Insights lead for PwC Globally and an Associate Client Partner of Behavioural Science and AI & Analytics at IBM, Melaina is recognized as a leading expert in weaving behavioural and data science within traditional problem-solving paradigms to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing business and society. She holds a degree in Cognitive Neuropsychology and Business from the University of Guelph and a Masters and PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology from McMaster University.

Dr. Najma Ahmed

Dr. Najma Ahmed is a Surgeon-in-Chief at St. Michael’s Hospital and Professor at the University of Toronto's Department of Surgery. Dr. Ahmed also holds the position of Vice Chair of Education, where she provides visionary leadership for training success for medical students, residents and fellows, as well as the career success of surgeon-teachers within the Department of Surgery. Her contributions to postgraduate surgical education have been recognized by numerous awards, including the prestigious Royal College AMS/Donald Richards Wilson Award in 2016.

Since joining the Division of General Surgery at St. Michael's Hospital in 2001, Dr. Ahmed specializes in acute care surgery, trauma, and critical care in her clinical work. From 2008 to 2018, Dr. Ahmed oversaw the largest and arguably most complicated surgical training programme in North America as the residency programme director for general surgery.

Dr. Ahmed completed Medical School and General Surgery Residency at McGill University. She holds a PhD in Surgical Infections and Sepsis which was completed during her surgical residency. Following her residency, she pursued fellowship training in Trauma Surgery and Critical Care at the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto.

Huda Idrees

Huda Idrees is the Founder and CEO of DotHealth, a platform revolutionizing personal health data management. Her career spans Toronto's most dynamic startups, including Wattpad, Wave, and Wealthsimple, leading to her current venture which significantly alters how individuals access and manage their health information.

Huda's work has been featured in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Metro News, CNBC, and Metro Morning. She has been recognized amongst the Top 5 CEOs in Toronto Life, a Top 25 Women of Influence in 2017, and named Top 30 under 30 by the Bay Street Bull in 2018. She has won numerous awards including Excellence Canada’s Board of Governors’ Special Recognition of Achievement Award in 2019, YWCA Toronto’s Young Woman of Distinction in 2019, Bay Street Bull’s 30×30 in 2018, University of Toronto Engineering Early Career Award in 2018, amongst others.

Huda has helped advise the Canadian Federal and Provincial Health Ministries on strategy, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for TechGirls Canada and the Sinai Health System.

Yolande Dufresne

Yolande is a registered Trademark Agent and Counsel in Intellectual Property and Life Sciences at Torys LLP, one of Canada’s premier law firms with offices in Toronto, New York, Calgary, Montréal and Halifax. With an engineering background in systems design, Yolande brings scientific knowledge and intellectual property skills to help clients navigate the regulatory complexities of the life sciences and technology sectors.

Yolande obtained her JD degree in Law from Western University and Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Waterloo. Yolande is a member of MedTech Canada, the Food and Drug Law Institute and the Licensing Executives Society. In the community, Yolande acts as program faculty for the Osgoode Hall Law School Certificate in Cannabis Law and Regulation on “The Regulatory Framework as it Applies to Medical Cannabis.”

Dr. Malak Elbatarny

Dr. Elbatarny is a Resident Physician in Cardiac Surgery, PhD candidate in the Surgeon-Scientist Training Program at the University of Toronto. Dr. Elbatarny was also awarded the most prestigious Canadian graduate award as a Vanier Scholar in 2023. Her PhD in Multiomics of thoracic aortopathy involves state-of-the-art bioinformatics, molecular biology validation, artificial intelligence, and multi-centre collaborations to develop precision medicine tools for better prognosticating risk of type A dissection. Through this work she has also established the MultiTAAD research working group.

Dr. Elbatarny obtained her PhD in Physiology from the University of Toronto and Medical Degree from Queen’s University. Dr. Elbatarny has served as a resident editor on the Cardiothoracic Surgery Network (CTSNet) for the past 4 years and is the resident representative on the University of Toronto Research Committee.

She has a strong interest in patient education and global surgical outreach; she has thus developed patient education campaigns, participated in global cardiac surgical rotations in Egypt, lead international and multi-centre collaborations, and most recently, is the founder of FlowLeaflets, a social enterprise for generation of clinical logbooks that raises funds for global surgical needs.

Event Venue

Torys Head Office - 79 Wellington St W, 33rd floor, 79 Wellington Street West, Toronto, Canada