Talent, like STEM, has no gender
International Women in Engineering Day
Madrid / 23 June 2020
Grappling with the technological transformation of entire economies and ensuring the transition to a low-carbon energy model will require all available talent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)--regardless of gender.
However, girls are still a clear minority in technical careers, even though the university degrees with best job prospects are related to STEM disciplines. Even at SGRE, women make up only 13% of the IT, Engineering, and R&D workforce. That's why we made one of the four objectives of the Diversity strategy to increase the number of women in the company.
Siemens Gamesa has also signed an agreement with the Royal Spanish Academy of Engineering to help encourage young women to choose STEM careers.
Traditionally, scientific and technical careers have been chosen mostly by boys. Although it is true that the share of women has been growing over the years, it is still far from parity.
According to an OECD report, "ABC of Gender Equality in Education," the lower presence of girls in technical careers is due to many factors including less confidence in their own abilities; preference for socially-oriented careers; social stereotypes and expectations; and the lack of role models.
It includes a series of initiatives targeting a range of ages, from high school to postgraduate students, but with one point in common: mentoring as the most powerful instrument for awakening vocations.
It offers opportunities for women in their final year of their undergraduate degree or master's degree to enhance their employability thanks to the support of engineering professionals. It also includes a program called TECHMI where students aged 12 to 16 learn about programming and mechanical engineering and participate in a nationwide team competition where challenges are designed to demonstrate the social utility of STEM and engineering. Participants receive the support of the mentored university women which in turn become the mentors for a next batch of women engineers.
No company, nor society at large, can afford to waste talent because of gender. Our goal at Siemens Gamesa is to replicate these kinds of value-add activities and initiatives to unleash the full potential of all our future engineers, scientists, designers, and technicians--and that starts with getting girls and young women in STEM.