IEEE Ladies in Engineering Membership On the Rise

It’s been a busy three years since IEEE Ladies in Engineering celebrated its twenty fifth anniversary in 2022.

WIE facilitates the recruitment and retention of girls in technical disciplines around the globe. It additionally works to encourage women to pursue an engineering profession. There are pupil chapters at universities across the globe. Males could be part of the affinity group as properly.

Ladies make up lower than a 3rd of the world’s workforce in technology-related fields, in keeping with a report by the World Financial institution Group.

WIE has launched a number of applications targeted on rising the variety of ladies within the science, expertise, engineering, and math fields. The brand new initiatives embrace grants and management applications, and a number of other contests have been launched to encourage and assist feminine college students who’re contemplating a STEM profession.

The group’s laborious work is paying off. Winnie Ye, the present WIE chair and an electronics professor at Carleton College, which is simply south of Ottawa, experiences that, as of February, the variety of members and pupil members was up over the identical interval final 12 months. There are greater than 28,800 members, a year-over-year improve better than 17 p.c. Scholar membership, at almost 21,000, is up by roughly the identical proportion. There at the moment are greater than 1,100 affinity teams.

“Regardless of this progress, attracting and retaining paying members stays a problem, significantly as college students transition to skilled membership,” Ye says. “Guaranteeing long-term engagement requires demonstrating clear worth by profession growth, networking, and management alternatives.”

A day of celebration, grants, and management coaching

Most of the new applications had been launched beneath Celia Shahnaz’s management. The WIE committee’s first elected chair, Shahnaz served in 2023 and 2024. In 2022 the committee made the chair an elected place.

Shahnaz has been a WIE volunteer for greater than 20 years. She established the primary WIE group within the IEEE Bangladesh Part in 2010 and have become its first chair. The IEEE senior member is a professor {of electrical} and digital engineering on the Bangladesh College of Engineering and Expertise, in Dhaka.

She says she is most pleased with bringing again the annual IEEE WIE Day, held on 29 June, the date the group was formally established in 1997.

“The day is a member-engaging occasion concentrating on membership growth and membership retention,” Shahnaz says. Actions embrace networking occasions, seminars, and workshops.

This 12 months’s theme is Pioneering Secure Our on-line world: Bridging Expertise and Gentle for Safety.

For some teams, sooner or later isn’t sufficient, so WIE Day occasions stretch out over a number of weeks. The inaugural occasion held in 2023 featured greater than 120 actions worldwide. The quantity almost doubled final 12 months, with over 230 occasions. This 12 months’s celebrations are scheduled to kick off on 23 June, to coincide with Worldwide Ladies in Engineering Day, then finish on 7 July.

The IEEE WIE Household Cares grant program was established to financially help members with caregiving duties to allow them to attend an IEEE convention. A grant supplies as much as US $1,000 to cowl bills associated to caring for youngsters, senior residents, and members of the family who’re disabled. The grant is sponsored by the IEEE Basis.

To maintain its members up to date on business tendencies, in addition to analysis outcomes and their sensible purposes, WIE has partnered with a number of IEEE societies and councils to supply a digital Distinguished Lecturers program. Greater than 20 teams have offered audio system, together with the Pc Society, Energy Electronics Society, and Sensors Council.

“I wish to actually strengthen WIE management with the local people in order that we will present extra focused assets and assist ladies.” —Winnie Ye

There’s additionally the brand new Business Specialists Community, a world database of business professionals, researchers, and leaders who could be referred to as upon to take part in an occasion.

“For any of our occasions, we will entry this record of fantastic folks, who we will ask to offer talks and supply workshops and seminars,” Ye says. A number of WIE applications are targeted on offering ladies with management abilities. Lower than 10 p.c of girls maintain positions reminiscent of CIO, CTO, and IT supervisor, or function technical group leaders, in keeping with this 12 months’s Ladies in Tech Stats report.

The WIE Worldwide Management Summits, that are held around the globe, present alternatives for networking, mentorship, and collaboration. Eight had been held final 12 months, and 7 are scheduled for this 12 months in nations together with Jordan, Pakistan, Poland, and the United States.

The WIE Discussion board USA East helps its attendees develop and enhance their management abilities by talks by profitable leaders. This 12 months’s occasion is scheduled to be held from 6 to eight November in Arlington, Va.

Ye says she is most excited concerning the return of WIE’s Worldwide Management Convention. After a two-year absence, the occasion is scheduled to be held on 15 and 16 Might in San Jose, Calif. The theme is Accelerating Management in an AI-Powered World. Registration is now open.

STEM-related contests

A number of contests have been launched to encourage younger ladies to pursue a STEM profession, Shahnaz says. Ladies make up about 35 p.c of STEM graduates—a gender disparity that hasn’t modified previously 10 years, in keeping with UNESCO’s 2024 World Training Monitoring Report.

Held for the primary time in 2023, the WIE Local weather Tech Large Concept Pitch competitors encourages feminine engineering college students and researchers to be entrepreneurial and is designed to extend the variety of technical startups led by ladies.

“I actually wished to encourage ladies to construct their capability utilizing their technical information {and professional} abilities to be a startup founder,” Shahnaz says. “We wished them to give you an answer to climate-change-related issues and showcase their enterprise concepts and fashions. We additionally wished to nurture the expertise of girls in all membership grades together with senior members, Fellows, and life Fellows.”

Within the 2023 contest, a group of engineering college students from the Bangladesh College of Engineering and Expertise gained first place within the affect class for its design of a bamboo filter for diesel engines.

There have been 60 submissions that first 12 months, and the quantity doubled final 12 months. The deadline for submissions for this 12 months’s contest will likely be introduced quickly.

Capitalizing on the recognition of manga comics and graphic novels with younger folks, WIE launched a contest in 2023 to search out the best-written manga that centered on Riko-chan, a fictional character who’s a preuniversity pupil. Riko-chan makes use of STEM instruments to assist remedy on a regular basis issues. Greater than 40 folks participated within the 2023 contest, and there have been 81 submissions final 12 months. Their tales can be found to learn on-line, and plenty of have been translated into 9 languages together with French, Hindi, and Spanish.

“We see this contest as a chance to showcase the various function fashions in engineering expertise,” Ye says. “The aim is to spark curiosity amongst our youthful viewers and make STEM fields extra relatable and extra thrilling for them.”

This 12 months’s manga competitors is now accepting submissions. Try the guidelines and deadlines on the WIE web site.

Mentoring and outreach applications

A brand new mentoring program is within the works, Ye says.

“We wish to actually create an lively mentor-mentee matching and engagement platform throughout the WIE neighborhood,” she says.

As a part of her imaginative and prescient for a extra engaged and inclusive neighborhood, she has launched the WIE Ambassador program. The initiative is designed to empower devoted WIE members to advocate for IEEE’s mission globally. The ambassadors can promote WIE initiatives, set up native occasions, and encourage extra ladies to pursue STEM careers, Ye says.

She emphasizes the significance of increasing WIE’s presence in underrepresented areas reminiscent of China and South Africa.

“Throughout my time period,” she says, “I’m dedicated to increasing our presence in these areas. I wish to actually strengthen WIE management with the local people in order that we will present extra focused assets and assist ladies. We wish to be sure that they’re conscious of us and grow to be extra lively.”