Today (February 22) is ‘Introduce a Girl to Engineering’ day. This whole week (February 18-24) is ‘National Engineering Week’ (in the US).
But a dedicated day within the week to introducing girls to engineering is such an important concept and cause!
Women make up only 15% of the engineering workforce!! And engineers literally build our world as we know it.
From computer technologies, to biomedical, mechanical, electrical, to civil engineering, and aerospace engineering, we would not live our lives as we know it without the innovations and creations of engineers of all kinds.
Imagine if half the global population – women – were involved in more of all these projects, missions, and endeavors! Surely that would bring more diversity, different perspectives, and equality from an economy standpoint.
From my personal experience and from my generation and background, I can say that when I was a young girl, I did not aspire to become an engineer (or even knew what they did!), nor did I have a mentor or source of inspiration, from teacher to some program on tv (I did have a math teacher in high school that believed in me and led me to liking math - the power of mentors!).
But times have changed, and that is why I believe ‘Introduce a Girl to Engineering’ day is very important!
The Discover Engineering organization, with their mentorship program on Girl Day, say that: 69% of girls consider a career in engineering.
That’s through a specific organization and program, but I’m certain in everyday life, teachers, neighbors, family friends, … do it regularly, without really even trying; they simply talk to those young girls about what they do and inspire them.
Mentorship matters. Representation matters. Inspiration really is profound.
NASA also partakes in outreach programs, including NASA STEM to inspire the Artemis generation (the Apollo generation has inspired many into engineering and science fields!), and with their NASA’s First Woman graphic novel series (in English and Spanish), with a fictional engineer/astronaut, Callie Rodriguez.
Apart from that, there are numerous programs, websites, organizations, and blogs on the subject. Share these with your daughters, nieces, students, neighbors, and who ever needs to be inspired to dream big.
Allow them (girls and boys alike) too know they can be in STEM, and work on making our world here on Earth better, and maybe even on endeavors toward going to the Moon and Mars!
A simple online search can yield to countless results, but I would also like to add here some of my friends' organizations and newer programs, that are working on this cause or in inspiring towards related fields pertaining to this cause.
Women in Aerospace in Europe (WIA-E) - Space makes you dream and we dream of modern society with gender equality and inclusion
Cosmic Girls Foundation - Launching Dreams in Girls - Launching Girls into Space
Space4Girls - Supporting young women to become innovators in the fields of STEM and to become the next generation of leaders in the rapidly growing space industry
Space For Humanity - Expanding access to space for all of humanity
Women's Aerospace Network - Empowering women in space (magazine coming out soon, but for now, most posts to follow are on LinkedIn or Instagram)
Enginnering Gals - *self-explanatory (link to Instagram)
Your Female Engineer - *self-explanatory, with Joan Marie, Space engineer (link to Instagram)
Iris Space Liaisons - And finally, my page where I aspire to inspire "space" for a better tomorrow
Please, share the inspiration!
"You can't be what you can't see." ~ Sally Ride
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