Our design brief attempts to tackle the gender bias in engineering. We feel that through having more gender diversity in the engineering workforce, more products might be produced or designed that help tackle the issues faced by women all over the world, such as period poverty, for example. Through personal experience, we have noticed that there is a lot of drive to encourage women towards engineering, but that this drive is often only aimed at those in the process of university applications, and older. However, there is less groundwork done that helps women reach that university application stage. We propose a platform where schools across the UK can share ideas, host talks together, and collaborate with universities and companies to offer internships and summer schools, in order to raise female interest and confidence in their technical skills. This platform could host design challenges across schools, showcase inspiring female engineers, and offer courses in conjunction with companies such as girls who code. A widespread drive to increase female uptake of A-level physics, and maths, starting with building confidence and interest much earlier on, and changing the way that girls view engineering from a male-dominated and difficult subject to something that they may be interested in, could help women reach the stage where they are applying to study engineering, and thus shift the gender balance of engineers, helping to create more sustainable women’s products and a more diverse workforce, and thus make engineering more globally responsible.
Yes. Sorry the invitation is in French!
Sharon Blass vous invite à une réunion Zoom planifiée.
Sujet : Ma réunion
Heure : 21 févr. 2021 10:30 AM Temps universel UTC
Participer à la réunion Zoom
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/5174673578?pwd=blc0eDZhR3cyL0ZEOUgyeGtmUXpEdz09
ID de réunion : 517 467 3578
Code secret : PG5Sjw
Ok. Are you able to set up a meeting for me to join?
Yes, that's great!
Could we do it as a practice run through to just clean up our final pitch?
I can meet earlier to give you more time to put together your final submission, or was this as a practice run through of your pitch?
I think Sunday might be good if it's okay with you?
Hi, yes of course, happy to meet. What day and time suits you all?
Hi Celeste! sorry I just saw this post. This is so helpful in refining our ideas! Maybe we could organise a zoom when you're free and I'll try improve the pitch in line with your suggestions before then? Thanks so much
How are you getting on Team D21-30? Is there anything else I can help you with?
Hi Team D21-30, I hope you are all keeping well (and warm!). I'm your mentor, Celeste Dauncey.
Firstly, what a great choice of topic/issue to focus your pitch on, challenging yet very apt.
I note you have said about personal experience of encouragement for females at University level – what sort of engagement was there and could this also be suitable for younger individuals? Have you also had personal experience of a lack of engagement/encouragement when you were in primary/secondary school which has prompted your pitch? Are there others that you could ask to see if their experiences match yours to see if this is one of the driving forces in a lack of females later down the line? Have you got any statistics or research to back up your personal experience of a lack of females?
Have you conducted any research into what is already out there in terms of platforms? At my Secondary school we had STEM learning days where we were set design challenges, including engineering challenges (https://www.stem.org.uk/), does this platform align with your ideas, if so how would you expand on this to get this to be global or would you focus on the UK? Will this only be open to females to join or will everyone be encouraged to get involved? There is a fine line between genuine diversity and positive discrimination.
You seem keen for female engineers to improve specifically female products, however have you considered that this may unintentionally be pushing female engineers into very niche areas, and implying that other areas of engineering should remain male dominated, or that females are only interested in female products for example? Would male engineers not be encouraged to also solve issues such as period poverty? It seems to me (I may have misinterpreted this) that there are 2 work streams here – one: is a lack of female engineers (in the UK or globally?), and two: is the focus of engineering solutions specifically aimed at females which may reach a more global level. So is it that your platform will engage people on both, or one issue?
Once this platform is up and running, how will it be funded and staffed, and how will schools or individuals be able to access this? Would it be through Government engagement or run privately? Have you considered toddlers, whereby parents may be choosing ‘typical’ gender specific toys for their children and whether their interest in Engineering can be encouraged at an even earlier stage than school?
Feel free to respond or comment back to me if you would like further help or advice. :-)