Paramount proudly introduces the inaugural Paramount CYBHER Awards 2026, a landmark initiative celebrating and amplifying the voices of women shaping the future of cybersecurity and GRC.
Launching across the GCC, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and India, the awards recognize women driving innovation, resilience, and excellence while giving their expertise the visibility it deserves.
The CYBHER Awards provide a unique platform for women cybersecurity professionals to share their knowledge through blogs, presentations, and videos, showcasing their insights, frameworks, and perspectives.
More than an awards program, CYBHER is a movement to inspire, empower, and elevate the next generation of women leaders in cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity is not only built by those who create products, but is also strengthened by those who implement, govern, question, improve, and defend.
If you are a cybersecurity professional working inside an organisation, applying security or GRC principles in the real world, your voice matters.
The CybHER Awards are open to women cybersecurity professionals working in end-user organizations. Please review the eligibility criteria below before submitting your nomination.
Choose and craft any one of the following that best represents your voice and expertise:
1. Maximum 1,000 words
2. Clear, practical, and insight-driven
1. Maximum 10 slides
2. Structured, concise, and actionable
1. Short, impactful, and focused
2. Can present insights, frameworks, or practical learnings
November 30, 2026. 11:59 pm Gulf Standard Time (UTC+4)
1st Week of December
Late submissions will not be considered.
Sumayya Shafi is an Information Technology Manager at Dubai Petroleum, leading the organisation’s IT portfolio with a focus on cybersecurity, digital transformation, technology resilience, and governance. She is passionate about cybersecurity and empowering women in technology, while also bringing a creative side as an avid henna artist and a proud mother of four. As a CybHER Awards Jury Member, Sumayya brings her experience in technology leadership to the jury and her passion for empowering women in cybersecurity.
Amna Al Balushi is a senior cybersecurity and technology leader with over 20 years of experience across banking, government, and consulting. Her expertise spans cybersecurity governance, technology risk, cyber resilience, regulatory compliance, and strategic security leadership. She is also an active speaker at regional banking, technology, and cybersecurity forums and has received multiple industry recognitions. Through the CybHER Awards jury, Amna brings extensive experience in cybersecurity leadership and governance to the recognition of excellence in the field.
Mariam Ahmed Ben-Dhafari is the Director of the Information Systems Center at the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development in Kuwait. She leads strategic technology initiatives spanning digital transformation, cybersecurity, IT governance, cloud services, and enterprise technology. Her work also focuses on operational resilience and the adoption of emerging technologies to build future-ready digital capabilities. As a CybHER Awards Jury Member, Mariam brings her strategic technology expertise to the jury.
Your information. Our responsibility.
We collect your name, contact details, company name, and article contribution to administer and evaluate entries for the CYBHER Awards 2026. Entries and relevant information will be shared with the designated judges and to Paramount for award-related purposes. Winners' names and company affiliations may be announced publicly through official communication channels. Your information will be retained for five (5) years and securely deleted or anonymised thereafter, subject to applicable legal requirements.
The CybHER Awards 2026 are a single competition organised by Paramount Computer Systems FZ-LLC, Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE ("Paramount"), together with its group company in Saudi Arabia, [Ahlan Cyber legal entity name] (“Ahlan Cyber"). Entries received through either website form part of the same competition and are judged by the same panel. A total of five (5) prizes will be awarded. Entries are licensed to both Paramount and Ahlan Cyber on the terms below.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Emirate of Dubai and the applicable federal laws of the United Arab Emirates, and the courts of Dubai have exclusive jurisdiction. The Awards are void where prohibited by local law. This means the Awards are not open to entrants in any country where participation, or the award of a prize, is prohibited or restricted by local law. Paramount may decline any entry, or withhold any prize, where it reasonably considers this necessary to comply with local law.
You keep ownership of your entry. By submitting it, you grant Paramount a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to reproduce, publish, display and communicate your entry to the public. This licence covers the whole entry or excerpts, and reformatted versions that do not alter its meaning. It is solely for judging, announcing and promoting the Awards and Paramount’s related women-in-cybersecurity initiatives. It applies on Paramount’s websites, social-media channels, newsletters and event materials, worldwide, for three (3) years from the date the winners are announced. Content published during that period may remain in Paramount’s online archives afterwards. Paramount will credit you as the author. Entries that do not win will not be published without your further consent.
By entering, you confirm that:
Paramount does not pick the winners. The judges score the entries without seeing names, so Paramount has no say in who wins.
Entries will be anonymised and scored by the judging panel against four equally weighted criteria: originality, practical value, clarity and industry impact. Each judge has declared any conflict of interest and will not score entries where a conflict exists. Judges take part in a personal capacity; their employers are not sponsors of, and do not endorse, the Awards. The panel’s decision on the merits is final, except in the case of manifest error or fraud.
Publicity: If you win, you agree that your name, job title, photograph and entry may be published by Paramount and Ahlan Cyber to announce the winners.
Who can enter:
The CybHER Awards 2026 is more than a competition — it is a platform to celebrate the expertise, leadership, and impact of women shaping the future of cybersecurity.
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