Have you read the latest issue of the The Woman Engineer journal?

Download it here!

Ceryl Evans has joined WES as Centenary Project Manager.

Ceryl joins WES on 17 July 2017 to manage the projects and strands of WES2019, including the Centenary Heritage Trail and 100for100 projects. Ceryl has a wealth of experience in managing complex projects in the heritage area and has most recently been Director of the Capability Brown Festival. This includes working with heritage organisations such as the Heritage Lottery Fund - all valuable experience for WES.

WES Student Groups Meeting

WES Student Groups were invited to meet at UCL in London on Wednesday 28th June. The meeting was attended by WES CEO Kirsten Bodley, President Benita Mehra, Office Manager Cath Heslop and Universities and Student Groups Liaison Jo Douglas.

To begin with Jo and Kirsten introduced WES to the group, discussing the history of WES and WES Student Groups, as well as talking about what WES are doing today and their plans for the centenary. The group then heard about the very successful careers fair organised by Loughborough University and the volunteering trip to Rwanda that University of Glasgow arranged. Then the student groups discussed how WES can best support them and what changes they would like to see at the WES student conferences. Overall the meeting was very productive, and all of us at WES can't wait to see what the student groups get up to next year!

What the YMB got up during INWED 2017! 

The YMB were involved in a variety of activities either in their respective businesses or outwith, here are some of the things we got up to and our feelings on INWED.... 

Maeve said... I love how INWED provides the opportunity to get people talking about the gender diversity gap in engineering, the day is so important!  

Jo says... It's great to challenge peoples perceptions about engineering, and INWED is a brilliant platform to attract more attention to this!  

Yasmin said.... 'I didn't survive the apocalypse, but I did teach young people about energy! 

Holly said... INWED allowed men and women from across different businesses and locations to have some in depth discussions on diversity, share best practice and identify areas where we all could improve. 

We have some new faces on the YMB! 

The YMB are excited to announce that we have 3 new members; Kirsty McDermott from National Grid, Deborah Harris from Rolls Royce, and Laura Davies from Altran UK. We received over 40 applications of very high standard and would like to thank everyone who took the time to apply for a position on the board. The YMB would also like to thank Emma England, Emma Herbert and Sharon Ross for their contribution to WES during their time on the board.

Women's Networks and Discussions Guest Speaker and Calibration Engineer from Bosch, Veronica Perez, attended this month's cluster meeting to share her experience on women's networks, including the history of 'women@bosch'. 

At the University of Hertfordshire where the talk was based, the information Veronica shared was invaluable and provided our members with a key insight into forming their own network groups and the challenges faced. With a good location and close-networking, conversation was soon flowing! 

WES Herts & Beds Cluster look forward to repeat events! For any future details on the WES Herts & Beds cluster events please see our Facebook page!

It has been a busy month for the WES Surrey and Sussex cluster supporting the following events:

Atkins breakfast meeting with local teachers: open discussion on how we can work collectively to better support local schools. Atkins has an amazing facility in their new STEM lab that is open to local schools and youth groups. 

INTECSEA WorleyParsons INWED lunch: Increasing the profile of our female engineers and getting the company talking about some of the challenges faced in increasing our numbers beyond the 9%.

Rosebery School Epsom: INWED Day event with year 7 8 and 9; A great opportunity for the girls to learn more about the different types of Engineering careers available to them by talking in small groups to female engineers.

Big Bang Fair South East: Over 9,500 school children visited the event that was orgainsed by Surrey and Sussex STEM.

Upcoming WES Events

The event, attended by nearly 150 people from across the engineering sector, was a resounding success. Professor Dame Ann Dowling presented an inspiring keynote speech, highlighting the importance of mentoring in supporting women engineers. Photos of the event can be seen here. 

ABI.London Summer Codeathon using Google Assistant Actions

July 22, 2017 · 9:30 am - 5:00 pm [Free REGISTER] UCL's Institute of Education, London  ABI.London invites you to participate in our summer codeathon taking place on the Saturday 22nd of July 2017. This is open to coders and enthusiasts of all levels and refreshments will be provided. The theme is "Challenge and Create" and we'll gather to brainstorm and prototype some interesting solutions using Google's new Google Assistant Actions API.

Further information and register online here.

Friday 28 July

STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harrell Oxford, Didcot

RAL are running this event with their partners Diamond Light Source and the Institute for Engineering and Technology. Engineers are incredibly important at RAL and all of their experiments rely on their knowledge and expertise. The day will start at 09:30 and finish by 13:00, with an engineering fair, with lots of hands-on demonstrations and activities, and the chance to talk to some of the engineers. There will then be a talk about engineering the Square Kilometre Array, which will be the world's biggest radio telescope, followed by tours of some of the facilities to see how engineering is helping people around the world. Tours will be going behind the scenes at facilities including the particle accelerators Diamond Light Source and the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, the 3D printers in their Metrology Lab, RAL Space's Precision Development Facility and their Scientific Computing Department.

Register online here for a great chance for you and your family to find out about engineering and the different careers and career paths that are possible.

The Greater London Authority is pleased to announce the release of its Digital Skills Training ESF project funding opportunity.

Digital Skills Training aims to equip unemployed and 'at risk' young Londoners for employment in London's increasingly digital economy. This funding will support new digital training opportunities that help young people aged 16-24 years old move into sustained employment, education or training and will help plug a growing talent gap in digital, technology and creative entry-level occupations with diverse, 'home-grown' talent.  The suite of documents required by potential delivery partners in order to submit an application  can be found here.

The submission deadline for the project application is 5pm, 28 July 2017.

Nominations for the 2017 Women of the Future Awards, in association with Aviva, are now open!

The Women of the Future Awards are the platform for successful young women in Britain. Now in their twelfth year, the awards continue to unearth and recognise the inspirational stars of tomorrow across diverse sectors. Their alumni are a remarkable, informal community of women determined not only to build professional and personal relationships with one another, but to be advocates for an exciting new generation of talent. The entry deadline is September 8 and this year's Awards will be presented on November 15 at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

More information about the nomination process and the categories open to nomination can be found on the website.

This month Jaguar Land Rover took their partnership with the band Gorillaz one step further by recruiting Noodle, the band's drummer to find the next generation of automotive talent. 

The "Gorillaz App" now features Noodle's Garage where the user is invited into a mixed reality world to break a number of coding challenges. The app is part of an ambitious recruitment drive and hopes to fill 1000 jobs by fast tracking successful participants through to an interview. The change in approach is in response to the rapidly changing industry which is facing a critical skills shortage.

Gamifying the application process hopes to inject an element of fun to fully capture the joy of problem solving and the persistence required to complete a challenge.  The app is available from the app store or google play.

Join the Conversation

Katherine Cecil is conducting a social justice research project exploring (in)visibility, (in)equity and access to STEM from the perspective of Black women active in STEM. She is currently reaching out to women of African and Caribbean decent who are active in STEM to see if they would like to have a conversation with her about their experiences. Conversations usually last around 30 to 90 minutes.

Katherine is a PhD candidate based in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London. Her research aims to provide a space where resources can be developed, revised, and shared so as to collectively build strategies for survival, resistance and transformation within the STEM community for people from all marginalised groups.

The research is explained in more detail and you can Join the Conversation here.

On Friday 23 July, King Edward VII School Sheffield hosted an exciting event for 75 female Y7-Y9 students from across South Yorkshire to meet female experts in the fields of Computer Science  and Engineering, to celebrate International Women in Engineering Day 2017. The event was organised by non-profit social enterprise Gaia Innovation and was sponsored by ARM UK, the world's leader in semiconductor Intellectual Property.

The day began with keynote speeches from three professionals holding very different roles in engineering. Antony Harris, Engineering Director at ARM UK, opened the event with a talk about ARM and the importance of gender balance in the engineering sector. This was followed by an inspiring speech from Andrea Catlow, a Finalist in this year's First Women Awards and the Site Operations Director at Frontier Pitts, the leading British manufacturer of blockers, barriers and gates. The girls particularly enjoyed Andrea's personal career story, and hearing about how she does not compromise her femininity whilst working in a stereotypically make role, choosing to combine her hard hat and steel capped boots with dresses and painted finger nails. Finally a different perspective was offered by Maha Kahn, Graduate Energy Consultant at ARUP, a multinational professional services firm. Maha encouraged the girls to have the courage to follow their passion and study the subjects and pursue careers in areas that truly interested them, rather than conforming to any female stereotypes. 

Students also took part in fun hands-on engineering activities such as building solar powered cars, engaging with robotics and using coding to locate resources on their 'Mission to Mars'. All the participants reported that the day had increased their knowledge of careers in engineering and computer science.

To mark International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2017, Derby-based composites manufacturer Pentaxia launched a social media campaign, titled #GoForIt, to help encourage girls and women to pursue careers in engineering. Project engineer Grace Atkinson, design engineer Kenzie Myers and composite laminator Maria Parkes pioneered the campaign showcasing their career highlights and sharing their advice in blogs and on Twitter throughout International Women in Engineering Day.

On Friday 23 June 2017 to coincide with International Women in Engineering Day Cool Concerns hosted a Women in RACHP (Refrigeration Air Conditioning Heat Pumps) career development event for 15 women who work in various roles within our industry. More details here.

Now in its fourth year, BP's Ultimate STEM Challenge is back! In partnership with the Science Museum and STEM Learning, BP is inviting UK students aged 11 to 14 to use their STEM skills to help reduce our impact on the environment and create a more sustainable future.

By exploring the practical uses of science, the challenges are designed to inspire young people to consider careers in STEM. Choose from three new challenges on the theme of My Sustainable Future: Handy Hydro, Parched Plants and Brilliant Biogas. 

The deadline for entries is January 12th 2018, with winners receiving an Ultimate STEM experience day, £500 to spend on science equipment or field trips, and Science Museum goody bags! 

For full details on the competition, access to STEM Ambassadors and to download the free Challenge resources, please   visit the website .

Engineering students Nia Schell, Demi York, Imogen Varga, Kathryn Papadakis and Yasmin Loveland all from Denbigh School Milton Keynes have been awarded England Champions at the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge UK Final to design and build a remote controlled car, and have secured a place at the world finals in Abu Dhabi in December.

The Epsilon Engineers - the only all-girl team at the event - were the best performing group in the competition, dominating their rivals to win altogether 5 awards and beating stereotypes in a male-dominated industry. 

The 6th form students meet weekly with engineering mentors Jane Harbige, Raluca-Mihaela Babi and Stephen de Caen from Milton Keynes based Niftylift Ltd, a manufacturer and global exporter of Mobile Elevating Work Platforms, who have provided the team with invaluable insight into the engineering industry and sponsorship support.

The Epsilon Engineers are now looking for further sponsorship to get them to Abu Dhabi. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.