Women's Engineering Society eNewsletter |
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2021 Amy Johnson Inspiration Award and Men As Allies Award |
WES is delighted to announce that we are seeking nominations for the Amy Johnson Inspiration Award and Men As Allies Award for 2021.
The Amy Johnson Inspiration Award honours an individual who is currently working in a non-engineering role who has made a truly remarkable achievement in furthering diversity within engineering and applied sciences. This award serves to recognise the efforts of an individual in inspiring more women to enter and/or remain in the engineering and technical professions. Click here to apply.
With men holding the majority of roles within engineering and applied sciences, it is crucial that they are involved in making the cultural changes needed to attract and retain women in these fields. The Men as Allies Award seeks to celebrate a male engineer, or other professional male working within the engineering, technical and applied science sectors, who has gone above the call of duty to support his female colleagues, and address the gender imbalance within engineering and applied sciences in general. Click here to apply.
The closing date for both awards is Monday 12 July 2021.
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WES Annual Conference – Engineering in the Service of Society |
‘A really fantastic conference … amazing speakers … I loved every minute of it.’ WES Annual Conference attendee (Technical Director)
Last week WES held its Annual Conference in virtual form, with an inspiring and exciting programme of speakers running over two days on Microsoft Teams. Presenters from a range of disciplines and backgrounds explored how engineers serve society in many ways, with keynote speakers Professor Cath Noakes OBE and Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE highlighting both the individual and collective responses to the pandemic and how engineers have been right at the forefront of finding solutions.
Among many other sessions, we also had a virtual tour from Amazon made exclusively for this WES event, an interactive session from Dyson on supporting wellbeing, and lots of tips and ideas for better work-life balance, job interviews, and better mental health in the workplace.
Look out for a full write-up in the next edition of The Woman Engineer!
We are grateful for the support of our 2021 Conference Sponsors: Amazon, BAE Systems, The Dyson Institute and Ford. Thanks also to our Annual Conference Media Partner: Energy Jobline.
Want to support or get involved in the 2022 WES Annual Conference? Email us at events@wes.org.uk
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WES Heritage work with WES Heritage Officer Helen Close |
WES is pleased to announce that from the 1 May 2021 Helen Close will be WES’s Heritage Officer.
Helen has been working with WES on the Centenary Trail Project, which has now come to an end, since June 2019. As Heritage Officer, Helen will be continuing to look at the history of women engineers and the role that WES has played while exploring how we can record the achievements of today’s women engineers and share their stories in the public sphere.
Helen will continue to support volunteers with the transcription of the Verena Holmes diaries, as well working with our Partners and Partner Members. Helen will be looking at how long their organisations have been established and how long have they been employing women for.
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She will also research their first woman engineer, what year they were employed and if there was a particular “turning point” or initiative that helped the organisation to take the positive step to employ a woman engineer.
Helen will also be working with our Members. Have a look at the Centenary Trail Map in your locality and see if there is a woman engineer from your area, and find out more about her from Wikipedia.If you are part of any local community Facebook pages, perhaps you could post and ask if anyone has any memories of them.
Alternatively, you could ask your community if they know of any engineering firms locally that employed only women (e.g Holmes & Leather in Gillingham, Kent, Erinex in Flore, Northampton and Atalanta in Loughborough).
Helen can be contacted on 07907 999129
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Now Recruiting: WES Apprentice Board
The WES Apprentice Board was formed in 2020 as a voice for female apprentices in the engineering industry.
WES recognises that apprenticeships are an important route into engineering for many women, so the Apprentice Board was set up to complement the work of our Early Careers Board and University Groups Board.
The Apprentice Board are looking for individuals who share our passion for promoting diversity and inclusion in engineering, and who want to actively support and lead our projects.
Applications are open to members over the age of 18, not in full time education who are currently undertaking training in line with one of the National Apprenticeship Standards or Apprenticeship Frameworks in an engineering field.
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Now Recruiting: WES Early Careers Board
The WES Early Careers Board is a group of twelve early career engineers who are passionate about promoting diversity and inclusion in engineering. The board members act as role models for young women considering careers in engineering and applied sciences, and run campaigns such as the #WESLottieTour and a Draw an Engineer competition for primary age students.
The ECB aims to make WES more accessible to younger members, to reflect their concerns and priorities and provide input to WES Trustees and staff, allowing the voices of younger engineers to be heard.
Applications are open to anyone over the age of 18 who is in the early stage of their engineering career. We are looking for individuals who share our passion for promoting diversity and inclusion in engineering, and who want to actively support and lead our projects.
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WES Student Board
Talking STEM with the women that shape it
The aim of the podcast is to showcase the variety of pathways and careers available to girls by introducing them to inspiring women shaping STEM. The podcast is released every Friday and consists of short and informative interviews. Recent episodes have featured Kate Walker, the founder of ExpHand Prosthetics; Veena Nair, a STEM teacher; and Flight Systems Engineer Krystina Pearson-Rampeearee.
The podcast is accessible by visiting the homepage here.
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WES Midland Cluster
Get Off with Dr Sophia Tetteh
19:00 6 May 2021
Sophia founded STEM Inspires – a social media platform that aims to inspire, educate and purpose with a bias towards engineering. She will share insights of her career so far and why she felt the need to create STEM Inspires. To book go here.
Functional Safety in the Automotive Industry with Edith Holland
19:00 20 May 2021
In this talk, Edith will share some background about her experience as a Female Engineer within the automotive industry. Book here
Powering up with Dr Nikita Hari
19:00 3 June 2021
In her talk, Dr Hari will share her journey and how she is contributing to innovation of engineering education and effectively educating youngsters to build and blow-up things. To find out more go here.
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Upcoming WES Partner Webinars
29 April 10am - Accelerating Career Progression of Female Talent & Introduction to Speak Out Revolution
Sue Gammons is an EMCC Accredited Executive Coach at Senior Practitioner level with 10+ years’ experience of coaching. In this session Sue will cover, Accelerating career progression of female talent: a systemic approach to change. Marie Hemingway will share insights into the lived experiences of employees, barriers to resolution and opportunities for organisations to improve, ultimately driving cultivation of a truly inclusive workplace. Join us for this exciting session. Click here to REGISTER
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Sign up for #WESLottieTour 2021!
The WES Early Careers Board is organising its sixth #WESLottieTour this year for Tomorrow's Engineers Week 2021, to show how varied and exciting it is to work in engineering! The Lottie Tour has grown so much since it was launched in 2016 from only 10 volunteers to an amazing 170 in 2019, but we’d love this number to grow even more this year. We’re proud to announce the 2021 #WESLottieTour is being sponsored by GKN Automotive for the second year in a row.
Sign up for the #WESLottie Tour by clicking and filling out the form here. Please use the form if you either would like to borrow a Lottie Doll from WES or if you already have your own as we’d love to capture the full number of volunteers taking part! Any questions, please get in contact with Vera and Kate on the ECB: ymb@wes.org.uk
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WES and Women in STEM Campaign
The Women in STEM campaign by Media Planet will be launching on 24 June and distributed in the New Scientist magazine and online here. WES will be featuring in an article led by Elizabeth Donnelly to share their thoughts behind the theme for INWED this year and discuss why society needs 'Engineering Heroes' more than ever. |
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Engineer, Sustrans, Manchester (home working / other locations considered)
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Tired Engineer In Training |
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Tired Engineer in Training, Eleanor Yong, shares the drawings that she started to help break up the monotony of studying/revising.
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WES Members nominated in the We Are The City Rising Stars Awards 2021
Many congratulations to the five WES members that have been shortlisted for the Rising Stars categories at this year’s We Are The City awards:
Natalie Cheung for Education & Academia
Dawn Childs for Champion 2021
Alexandra Mather for Science & Engineering
Kirsty McDermott for Energy & Utilities
Emma Nicholson for Infrastructure, Transport & Logistics
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The Big Engineering Conversation |
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EngineeringUK is inviting the engineering community to take part in the Big Engineering Conversation - a new campaign to encourage discussion and realise the ambition to increase the diversity and number of young people entering engineering.
A series of Talking Points released over the next three months will aim to get employers, individual engineers, professional engineering Institutions, delivery organisations and anyone else connected to the engineering sector talking and sharing their expertise and insight to propel the change needed to work together and grow the sectors’ collective impact.
Follow EngineeringUK on Twitter and LinkedIn to share insights, experience and questions using the #BigEngConversation or have a look here for more information.
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'Unleash Potential', Polish women working in STEM fields in the UK |
'Unleash Potential', is a new report that is being undertaken by the Association of Polish Engineers in Great Britain. It will look at the experience of Polish women working in STEM in the UK. If you, or any of your colleagues are Polish, and working in #STEM in the UK, please do complete this survey or have a look at the Unleash Potential website here.
The Association of Polish Engineers in Great Britain (Polish acronym STP) was founded in 1940 by Polish engineers who, as a result of the outbreak of World War II, found themselves in the British Isles.
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Fantastic volunteering opportunities in steam locomotive engineering
The General Steam Navigation Locomotive Restoration Society is looking for a volunteer Site Manager and Head of Manufacturing to join an exciting project recreating an original condition Bullied Merchant Navy Pacific locomotive.
This is a great opportunity for those in the earlier stages of their career to gain experience, but is open to anyone with an interest. The locomotive is currently based in Swindon and occasional weekend site visits would be required, but some aspects of the work can be undertaken remotely. Please visit the Locomotive Society website or contact Steve Rapley for more information.
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RAEng Awards now open
The Bhattacharyya Award is a new annual award to celebrate collaboration between academia and industry. This prize of £25,000 will be awarded to the team who best show how industry and universities can work together.
Award value: £25,000
Deadline: 31 May 2021
From renewable energy infrastructure to medical equipment, electronic waste to buildings, Engineering X is looking for individuals and organisations who champion safety at end of engineered life to support them to make a difference. .
Deadline: 19 May 2021
The Scale Up Accelerator supports individuals in leadership roles within high-growth engineering and tech SMEs with a £10,000 training grant, six months of leadership coaching, business support and more.
Deadline: 10 May 2021
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WES is grateful for the support, in the form of partnership, sponsorship, collaborations, in-kind donations and funding for recent projects from many organisations including those listed below. To find out more about becoming a Partner please visit our website here. |
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Michael Faraday House, Six Hills Way
Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2AY
Phone: 01438 765506
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