Back in November, two of us from Watt Women attended the 10th annual Women's Engineering Society (WES) Student Conference discussing the theme for this year:
“Transform the Future”
We set off at 5am and made the 6-hour carpool karaoke trip down the motorway to the Warwick University. Over the two days, we attended inspirational talks, panel sessions, and workshops, gaining tools and knowledge to build a successful career in engineering. It was a great chance to meet like-minded students from all years and engineering backgrounds eager to develop their careers and make a real impact.
A brief summary of the 2 days
Climate change emergency (Sally Sudworth)- the conference opened with a very hot topic at the moment where quick thinking and more action are greatly needed. Not only do engineers have a pivotal role in making sustainable products solve some of these challenges, but we all also have an individual contribution to make to collectively meet the Paris Agreement and net-zero by 2050. We were encouraged to check our carbon footprint and make small sustainable changes to our own lifestyle.
Risks (FM Global)- following on nicely, Tom Roche from FM Global discussed the effects of global warming and how the company is working to reduce the effects of natural disasters on infrastructure using predictive simulation, and the need for sprinklers was mentioned once or twice.
Autonomous vehicles (Dr Valentina Donzella)- With the rise of autonomous vehicles comes exciting technologies but new moral dilemmas. A study by MIT researchers on the website: moralmachine.mit.edu gives different scenarios where the vehicle’s controls go drastically wrong and the user must make the difficult decision to choose between two evils. Are we ready for this technology takeover?
Pinkspiration (Lisa Marie Brown)-grown to be one of the top social businesses in the UK, inspiring and upskilling young people, bringing them into construction regeneration projects that help the community, with an added sprinkle of pink is the work of founder Lisa Marie Brown. Pinkspiration also looks to encourage more women into construction by actively encouraging women onto the projects. With some of the perks of a pinked-themed company include a very cool first-ever pink Ferrari.
The future of Engineering Panel Session
Before our last panel session of the conference, we were asked in a poll, of the three topics about to be discussed: Healthcare, Renewables, and Nuclear, which one we thought would have the biggest impact in transforming the future. Renewables won by a country mile with 70% of the votes. However, one talk by Helen Meese, founder and CEO of The Care Machine, about the med tech industry was the real eye-opener.
The talk was influential in understanding the importance of biomedical technology in transforming the future, and enough to change our minds to sway the end poll, as the majority agreed that healthcare technology had the most significant impact on our future.
Some key take-aways
The IET workshop in professional development highlighted the importance of on CPD in our early careers and showed that becoming chartered is only a milestone and there are so so many opportunities to grow your career after chartership.
Jay Surti’s workshop on honing in your presentation skills, leadership, and personal branding presented a new way to approach to presentations. From working on knowing your audience to adding simple analogies to explain complex ideas.
It was really rewarding networking and gaining advice from students and industry professionals alike and building contacts to grow the women in STEM society at Heriot-Watt.
Final thoughts
A massive thanks to WES for an amazing fun-packed 2 days, filled with incredible people: all the panellists, speakers, and students had amazing stories to tell. Finally, thanks to all the amazing sponsors as without their support none of this would be possible. With so many topics covered, it was cool to imagine what a future world could be like and learning how we can play our part to #transformthefuture.
Written by Rosie Mulligan
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