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 all over the world. It additionally works to encourage women to pursue an engineering profession. There are scholar 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, based on a report by the World Bank Group.

WIE has launched a number of packages centered on rising the variety of girls within the science, know-how, engineering, and math fields. The brand new initiatives embody grants and management packages, and several other contests have been launched to encourage and assist 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 12 months. There are greater than 28,800 members, a year-over-year enhance higher than 17 p.c. Pupil membership, at almost 21,000, is up by roughly the identical share. 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. “Making certain long-term engagement requires demonstrating clear worth by way of profession growth, networking, and management alternatives.”

A day of celebration, grants, and management coaching

Lots of the new packages 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 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 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 embody networking occasions, seminars, and workshops.

This 12 months’s theme is Pioneering Protected Cyberspace: Bridging Know-how and Mild for Safety.

For some teams, someday will not 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 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 gives as much as US $1,000 to cowl bills associated to caring for kids, senior citizens, and members of the family who’re disabled. The grant is sponsored by the IEEE Foundation.

To maintain its members up to date on trade traits, 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 supplied audio system, together with the Computer Society, Power Electronics Society, and Sensors Council.

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

There’s additionally the brand new Industry Experts Network, a worldwide database of trade 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 packages are centered on offering girls with management abilities. Lower than 10 p.c of ladies maintain positions similar to CIO, CTO, and IT supervisor, or function technical group leaders, based on this 12 months’s Women in Tech Stats report.

The WIE International Leadership Summits, that are held all over the world, 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 Forum USA East helps its attendees develop and enhance their management abilities by way 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 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 girls 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 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 girls.

“I actually needed to encourage girls to construct their capability utilizing their technical data {and professional} abilities to be a startup founder,” Shahnaz says. “We needed them to provide you with an answer to climate-change-related issues and showcase their enterprise concepts and fashions. We additionally needed to nurture the expertise of ladies 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 University of Engineering and Technology received 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 last year. The deadline for submissions for this 12 months’s contest might 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 remedy 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 possibility to showcase the various position fashions in engineering know-how,” 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 rules and deadlines on the WIE web site.

Mentoring and outreach packages

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

“We wish to actually create an energetic 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, set up native occasions, and encourage extra girls to pursue STEM careers, Ye says.

She emphasizes the significance of increasing WIE’s presence in underrepresented areas similar 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 area people in order that we will present extra focused assets and assist girls. We wish to ensure that they’re conscious of us and turn out to be extra energetic.”