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 world wide. It additionally works to encourage ladies to pursue an engineering profession. There are pupil chapters at universities across the globe. Males could be a part of the affinity group as effectively.

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

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

The group’s exhausting 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 enhance better than 17 p.c. Pupil membership, at almost 21,000, is up by roughly the identical proportion. There are actually greater than 1,100 affinity teams.

“Regardless of this development, 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 means of profession growth, networking, and management alternatives.”

A day of celebration, grants, and management coaching

Lots of the new applications have 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 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 focusing on membership growth and membership retention,” Shahnaz says. Actions embody networking occasions, seminars, and workshops.

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

For some teams, sooner or later 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 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 kids, 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 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 supplied audio system, together with the Laptop Society, Energy Electronics Society, and Sensors Council.

“I wish to actually strengthen WIE management with the local people in order that we are able to present extra focused sources and help 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 are able to entry this checklist of fantastic folks, who we are able to ask to present talks and supply workshops and seminars,” Ye says. A number of WIE applications are centered on offering ladies with management expertise. Lower than 10 p.c of girls maintain positions comparable to CIO, CTO, and IT supervisor, or function technical staff leaders, based on this 12 months’s Ladies in Tech Stats report.

The WIE Worldwide Management Summits, that are held world wide, present alternatives for networking, mentorship, and collaboration. Eight have been held final 12 months, and 7 are scheduled for this 12 months in international locations together with Jordan, Pakistan, Poland, and the United States.

The WIE Discussion board USA East helps its attendees develop and enhance their management expertise by means of 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 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 p.c of STEM graduates—a gender disparity that hasn’t modified previously 10 years, based on UNESCO’s 2024 World Training Monitoring Report.

Held for the primary time in 2023, the WIE Local weather Tech Massive 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} expertise 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 staff of engineering college students from the Bangladesh College of Engineering and Expertise received first place within the impression 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 can 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 resolve 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 varied position fashions in engineering expertise,” Ye says. “The purpose 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 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, manage native occasions, and encourage extra ladies to pursue STEM careers, Ye says.

She emphasizes the significance of increasing WIE’s presence in underrepresented areas comparable to 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 are able to present extra focused sources and help ladies. We wish to ensure that they’re conscious of us and turn into extra lively.”