This International Women in Engineering Day, two Solution Engineers at Salesforce, one who began in Kenya and one in Egypt, share how crossing borders, changing direction, and refusing to wait turned them into women now helping shape the region’s AI future.
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| Marion Karanja | Loma Abbas |
Marion Karanja has walked into meetings where someone asked, “Is the engineer joining?” while she was already seated at the table. Loma Abbas has, more than once, found herself the only woman in the room. A continent and a career apart, the two Salesforce Solution Engineers arrived at the same conclusion that the goal was never to blend in. It was to bring something the room did not yet have.
Marked on 23 June under the theme #EngineeringIntelligence, this year’s International Women in Engineering Day celebrates the women shaping artificial intelligence and the technologies defining the next era of business. Karanja’s journey started in Kenya while Abbas’ started in Egypt. Both now sit at Salesforce in the Middle East, at the point where technology meets business, helping organizations work out what AI can actually do for them.
Karanja grew up in a humble family of two in Kenya, the daughter of a government clerk who farmed on the side to make ends meet. Her father told her, again and again, that she could become anything she wanted, until she believed it. Engineering itself was inspired by an uncle, the only person in the extended family who could afford a car. To a child, the lesson was simply that technical skill was a route to opportunity. She went on to study Telecommunications and Information Engineering, and when she got a chance to leave her home country for an internship in Germany, her father sold a cow to help cover the airfare. Marion Karanja said, “Today, I am an engineer because I was given an opportunity.”
Abbas was the child who always asked why, the one who wanted to understand what was happening behind the scenes rather than simply accept that something worked. Growing up in Egypt, technology felt like a field where innovation could genuinely change people’s lives. That curiosity led her to study engineering at the German University in Cairo. There was no single defining moment, she says, but the conviction that engineering lets you solve real problems and create tangible impact has stayed with her ever since.
The courage to change direction:
Both women could have stayed in the purely technical lane, but neither did. Karanja built her foundation at IBM on the Airtel account, moved into a technology leadership role at a consulting firm, then joined Oracle as a Principal Technology Solution Engineer, deep in conversations about cloud, security, data and architecture with enterprise and government customers. Over time, she realized she wanted to do something different and not only speak to technical teams, but help business leaders connect technology to strategy, growth and impact. That instinct led her to Salesforce.
Abbas started her career as a Network Security Engineer, configuring firewalls and working with a range of cybersecurity technologies. She enjoyed the technical side, but she wanted to work more closely with customers and help shape solutions rather than just implement them. Loma Abbas commented, “Looking back, I’m proud that I never allowed fear of change to limit my growth.” Moving into a pre-sales role meant stepping outside her comfort zone and beginning a new learning journey. She took the leap anyway.
Careers built by crossing borders:
Neither path ran in a straight line, and neither stayed in one country. Karanja’s journey took her from Kenya to Germany to the UAE. Germany, where she was one of only two women in an entire block, taught her that the challenges facing women in engineering were not challenges related to her home country but global ones. The UAE on the other hand, with its boldness and willingness to experiment, challenged and inspired her in turn. Today, she is learning Arabic, describing languages less as a tool for communication than as a way of entering another person’s world with humility.
Abbas moved from Egypt to Ireland and then to the UAE, taking on new opportunities, cultures and challenges at each step. Her advice to women weighing a move abroad is to stay rooted while staying open. “You don’t lose your identity by moving abroad,” she says, “you expand it.” A multi-country, non-linear path, she argues, is not a collection of detours but a unique combination nobody else has, an advantage once you learn to articulate the value it brings.
Engineering intelligence, from the front row:
This year’s theme puts women shaping AI at its centre, and both engineers are doing exactly that. Karanja’s focus spans travel, transport and hospitality, and her conversations increasingly turn on AI, data and customer experience. Her proudest moment to date came when she stepped onto the stage at Salesforce World Tour Dubai to deliver an Agentforce keynote demo. For her, it was a full-circle moment: a girl from Kenya whose father once sold a cow to put her on a plane, now on a global technology stage speaking about AI and the future of work.
For Abbas, AI is already transforming how she works, handling repetitive tasks so she can spend more time on creativity, problem-solving and strategy. Her role lets her explore new AI capabilities before they reach the mainstream and test how they might create value for customers. Both women land on the same point about the technology itself: the best solutions emerge when people with different experiences and perspectives are in the room as these tools are built, challenging assumptions and keeping real human needs in view.
What they would tell the next woman:
Asked what advice they would give a young woman starting out, the two answers rhyme. “Don’t wait until you feel completely ready,” Abbas says. “Confidence often comes after action, not before it.” Karanja’s message to any woman who feels like the only one in the room is “you do belong, and you are not alone, because others came before you and others will come after”.
Both keep returning to the same word: opportunity, and the duty to pass it on. Karanja has lectured at Garissa University in northern Kenya and now sits on the board of an agritech company supporting women smallholder farmers, a role that ties together her roots, her engineering and her desire to give back. Abbas points to mentorship, sponsorship and early hands-on experience as the things that will move the next generation faster, arguing that representation matters, but creating pathways into leadership matters just as much.
A cow sold in Kenya and a firewall configured in Egypt were two unlikely starting points that led to the same stage. “My responsibility is to use that opportunity to create more opportunities for others,” Karanja says.
