Collaboration agreement to foster femal leadership in engineering
The UAB and the Caixa Enginyers Foundation have signed an agreement to promote female leadership in the engineering sector thanks to the support of organisations such as the Women Empower Foundation and the Engineering Half-Hackathon, organised by the UAB School of Engineering.
The School of Engineering of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Fundació Caixa Enginyers recently signed a collaboration agreement. Within the framework of this alliance, the Foundation is committed to promoting the Women Empower Programme and the Half-Hackathon, initiatives of the UAB School of Engineering focused on promoting female leadership in the field of engineering and STEM professions.
This collaboration arises in a context in which it is essential to promote equal opportunities in the world of engineering, a sector in which, as is the case in all STEAM disciplines, male representation is much higher. Despite the growing presence of women in the ICT sector, it is still limited. In fact, according to the Catalan Women's Institute, women represent only 19.4% of professionals in this field in Catalonia.
Montse Carbó, director of communication, CSR and Fundació Caixa Enginyers states that “collaborating with the UAB School of Engineering is a source of pride for us as it links us to our origins, the world of engineering, when more than 57 years ago a group of engineers decided to found Caixa Enginyers to respond to their financial needs, and allows us to contribute our grain of sand in building a fairer and more inclusive future in the engineering sector”. With this agreement, the foundation contributes to providing tools that foster women's confidence and self-esteem, with support for both their academic and professional development, and advances in its purpose of providing support to projects that ensure the visibility of women in these fields, contributing to their professional and academic development.
Aura Hernández, Deputy Director of Gender and Secondary School Relations at the UAB School of Engineering, says: “At the UAB School of Engineering, we are pleased to be able to promote, together with the Fundació Caixa Enginyers, projects as powerful as those mentioned above to encourage girls and teenagers to become engineers and empower our future female engineers to aim high”.
Specifically, through the Female Empower Programme, students' skills will be enhanced and they will be guided in their first professional experiences through training in coordination with MEMEnginy and with the accompaniment of women with experience in leadership and decision-making. In the Engineering Half-Hackathon, aimed at students between 10 and 13 years of age and with emphasis on female students, participants are asked to solve real problems by applying technological solutions, promoting teamwork and demonstrating that engineering is accessible to all. In addition to supporting these two innovative initiatives, the Fundació Caixa Enginyers, true to its origins linked to the world of engineering, will also sponsor the Best Students Awards, a recognition given to those students who achieve the highest marks.