{"id":12930,"date":"2019-06-23T04:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T03:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.engineernewsnetwork.com\/blog\/?p=12930"},"modified":"2019-06-24T10:49:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T09:49:46","slug":"inspirational-engineers-and-entrepreneurs-identify-role-models-as-critical-to-womens-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineernewsnetwork.com\/blog\/inspirational-engineers-and-entrepreneurs-identify-role-models-as-critical-to-womens-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspirational engineers and entrepreneurs identify role models as critical to women\u2019s success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A panel of experts from the world&#8217;s of engineering and enterprise have convened at the University of Southampton to discuss the barriers to women\u2019s participation in both environments, ahead of International Women in Engineering Day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hosted by the University\u2019s startup accelerator Future Worlds and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and comprising experts from the University of Southampton, the IET and the Future Worlds network, the discussion considered the experiences of women who study and work in engineering, and those who decide to launch their own startups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) is an annual international awareness campaign to raise the profile of women in engineering, spearheaded by the Women\u2019s Engineering Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The round table responded to the fact that women are seven times less likely than men to have a career in engineering, and five times less likely than men to build a business with a \u00a31m+ turnover, and that a lack of visible role models and mentors was cited as a crucial barrier to women building careers in engineering<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The contributors included Virginia Hodge, Vice-President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/futureworlds.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Future Worlds (opens in a new tab)\">Future Worlds<\/a><\/strong> mentor, Southampton graduate Shirin Dehghan, 3G pioneer and founder of Arieso, and also a Future Worlds mentor, and Alison Vincent, previously CTO of CISCO UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Virginia Hodge explained that with 20,000 engineering roles currently unfilled in the UK, the \u201cIET\u2019s aim is to inspire, inform, and influence engineers, the public and the government about how exciting engineering is, and I\u2019m very keen that we increase the diversity of engineers, which means we need to encourage more women and also more of the LGBT+ community and those from more diverse ethnic backgrounds to pursue engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The panel identified that crucial to encouraging women to pursue these careers is having visible role models from a young age. Hannah Cordingly, a current STEM A-level student, shared her belief that there needs to be \u201ca lot more encouragement\u201d for girls to study engineering. \u201cMy parents are my role models; as they both work in medicine, I learned from them that I could follow a path in science. Not everyone will have those role models at home, so I think schools need to actively encourage an interest in science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Susan Gourvenec, Deputy Director of the Southampton Marine &amp; Maritime Institute promoted the notion that \u2018if you can\u2019t see it, you can\u2019t be it\u2019.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe all need role models, and more importantly sponsors. Sponsorship is often more enabling than role modelling or mentorship; you can have someone demonstrating a pathway, or to offering you advice, but what is really powerful is having someone who opens a door for you. Often people sponsor those they find affinity with, so they end up sponsoring people who are like them, which does not help improving diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shirin Dehghan shared her disappointment at not seeing female-founded firms pitching to her during her time as a venture capital partner; \u201cI felt that as a female partner I should have been a magnet to female founders. I\u2019d really like to see us break down the barriers to women\u2019s participation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ben Clark, Director of Future Worlds, commented on the \u201cperennial problem for startup founders\u201d of finding the right mentor. \u201cThere\u2019s so many more male founders that it\u2019s more difficult if you\u2019re a female founder wanting to find a mentor you directly identify with.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s huge power in connecting people with role models who allow them to see that their ambitions can be realised, no matter who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ashley Unitt, whose software company NewVoiceMedia was last year acquired for $350m, shared his first-hand experience of working to recruit more women: \u201cRecruiting our first female developer was incredibly difficult, I believe this was because people need to see that there are others like them in the organisation, that they weren\u2019t going to feel alone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s crucial to put the work in to reach the point of critical mass, where you have a diversity of role models who make it clear that this company is somewhere you can feel comfortable. You need to celebrate your success stories and profile your role models \u2013 that\u2019s how you build momentum.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A panel of experts from the world&#8217;s of engineering and enterprise have convened at the University of Southampton to discuss the barriers to women\u2019s participation in both environments, ahead of International Women in Engineering Day. Hosted by the University\u2019s startup accelerator Future Worlds and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and comprising experts from &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[199],"tags":[6569,6568,5422],"class_list":["post-12930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-news-views-and-opinion","tag-future-worlds","tag-international-women-in-engineering-day-2019","tag-university-of-southampton"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Inspirational engineers and entrepreneurs identify role models as critical to women\u2019s success - Engineer News Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A panel of experts from the worlds of engineering and enterprise have convened at the University of Southampton to discuss the barriers to women\u2019s participation in both environments, ahead of International Women in Engineering Day\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engineernewsnetwork.com\/blog\/inspirational-engineers-and-entrepreneurs-identify-role-models-as-critical-to-womens-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inspirational engineers and entrepreneurs identify role models as critical to women\u2019s success - 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