IEEE Women in Engineering Membership On the Rise

It’s been a busy three years since IEEE Women in Engineering celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2022.

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

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

WIE has launched a number of applications centered 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 help feminine college students who’re contemplating a STEM profession.

The group’s arduous work is paying off. Winnie Ye, the present WIE chair and an electronics professor at Carleton University, which is simply south of Ottawa, studies that, as of February, the variety of members and student members was up over the identical interval final yr. There are greater than 28,800 members, a year-over-year improve higher than 17 %. Scholar membership, at practically 21,000, is up by roughly the identical proportion. There are actually greater than 1,100 affinity teams.

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

A day of celebration, grants, and management coaching

Lots of the new applications have been launched below 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 Section in 2010 and have become its first chair. The IEEE senior member is a professor {of electrical} and digital engineering on the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, in Dhaka.

She says she is most happy 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 improvement and membership retention,” Shahnaz says. Actions embrace networking occasions, seminars, and workshops.

This yr’s theme is Pioneering Protected Cyberspace: Bridging Know-how and Gentle for Safety.

For some teams, at some point shouldn’t be 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 practically doubled final yr, with over 230 occasions. This yr’s celebrations are scheduled to kick off on 23 June, to coincide with International Women in Engineering Day, then finish on 7 July.

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

To maintain its members up to date on trade developments, in addition to analysis outcomes and their sensible functions, 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 Computer Society, Power Electronics Society, and Sensors Council.

“I need to actually strengthen WIE management with the local people in order that we are able to present extra focused assets and help ladies.” —Winnie Ye

There’s additionally the brand new Industry Experts Network, a world database of trade professionals, researchers, and leaders who will be known as upon to take part in an occasion.

“For any of our occasions, we are able to entry this checklist of fantastic folks, who we are able to ask to offer talks and provide workshops and seminars,” Ye says. A number of WIE applications are centered on offering ladies with management expertise. Lower than 10 % of ladies maintain positions reminiscent of CIO, CTO, and IT supervisor, or function technical workforce leaders, in accordance with this yr’s Women in Tech Stats report.

The WIE International Leadership Summits, that are held around the globe, present alternatives for networking, mentorship, and collaboration. Eight have been held final yr, and 7 are scheduled for this yr in nations together with Jordan, Pakistan, Poland, and the United States.

The WIE Forum USA East helps its attendees develop and enhance their management expertise by way of talks by profitable leaders. This yr’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 International Leadership Conference. After a two-year absence, the occasion is scheduled to be held on 15 and 16 Could 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 % of STEM graduates—a gender disparity that hasn’t modified up to now 10 years, in accordance with UNESCO’s 2024 Global Education Monitoring Report.

Held for the primary time in 2023, the WIE Climate Tech Big Idea 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 data {and professional} expertise to be a startup founder,” Shahnaz says. “We wished them to provide you with an answer to climate-change-related issues and showcase their enterprise concepts and fashions. We additionally wished to nurture the expertise of ladies in all membership grades together with senior members, Fellows, and life Fellows.”

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

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

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

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

This yr’s manga competitors is now accepting submissions. Try the rules and deadlines on the WIE web site.

Mentoring and outreach applications

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

“We need to actually create an energetic mentor-mentee matching and engagement platform inside the WIE group,” she says.

As a part of her imaginative and prescient for a extra engaged and inclusive group, 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 need to actually strengthen WIE management with the local people in order that we are able to present extra focused assets and help ladies. We need to make it possible for they’re conscious of us and develop into extra energetic.”