International Women's Day Launch - Cocktail Evening

Engineers Australia - Women in Engineering Sydney Division celebrated International Women’s Day on Thursday 7 March 2013. Engineers Australia invited members and guests for a Cocktail Evening at the Shelbourne Hotel. The night kicked off with some inspiring speakers, mother and daughter team of Dr Catherine Killen; UTS academic in the field of innovation engineering,and Annabel Killen who both spoke about their personal journeys and experiences working in the field of engineering. 

Dr Catherine Killen provided great insight into her motivations which lead her to become a mechanical engineer and followed on by conveying her experiences on being the only female engineer at that time within the firm she was employed at. Annabel Killen spoke of her experiences as a Roads and Maritime Services (formerly RTA) scholar and then about her experiences of working at Evans and Peck consultancy. The evening was a great success, with students and professionals participating in the International Women’s Day celebrations and gaining valuable insight into the real experiences of women initiating change in the engineering profession.

This particular event was inspiring as I am a young engineering student myself. Coming from a background where engineering as a profession was not considered, in family and schooling to being in a room full of 50 or so women who have gone on to achieve amazing and exciting endeavours, was a truly invaluable experience. Being the youngest attendee, I met many current university students and many graduates who had secured astonishing graduate programs in their field. Throughout the night, I met inspirational women from all walks of life and those who had held reputable positions. Listening to the speeches of Dr Catherine Killen and Annabel Killen, it was inspiring to see the change of "women in engineering" from one generation to the next. It made me realise how significant this change was, right now, and that I am a part of this transition. Speaking with Dr Catherine Killen and about her background, I had realised that we were very similar, despite the generation gap, and I hope to go on to achieve an astonishing career. 

The night went on with a warm buzz amongst the general chatter and delish food. It was unfortunate that the night ended too quickly. Meeting inspirational women from various fields of engineering and who have achieved remarkable success, in a time where society and their gender outnumbers them. The main lesson I had learned from the cocktail event was to not be afraid to put yourself out there amongst strangers. You have nothing to lose and the only person holding you back is yourself! Network as much as you can to those who share your passion for engineering. Meet with people from all walks of life and you never know where it can take you. 

As reported by Harshaa Raha, 2012 Sydney Wie Division Scholar and Civil/Environmental Engineering student at the University of Technology, Sydney and Elizabeth Si, 2011 UTS Women in Engineering Scholar and Biomedical Engineering student at the University of Technology, Sydney

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RMS site visit: Transport Management Centre for NSW

Today, the WiE&IT Team took almost 30 UTS students on a site visit to the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) Transport Management Centre for NSW. The Transport Management Centre is situated in Redfern, and is the centre for traffic control for all state roads in the whole of NSW- that's 18,000km of road! We were invited into their presentation room, the very same room where they greet politicians and international partners, which had a great view over the Transport Operations Room. Having never heard of the TMC before, I was truly amazed to see the huge screen occupying an entire wall and displaying many familiar roads. Angela Cannuli, our presenter for the day,  explained that the Operations controllers work in shifts to monitor these roads 24/7, every day of the year, and to send assistance where it's needed.

Operations Controllers monitoring traffic in Sydney city

Angela showed a short video which explained the operations of the TMC in more detail. The Operations Controllers role is 'incident management', which involves liaising with emergency services, coordinating field resources, monitoring traffic, planning major events to minimise impact on non event communities (such as City2Surf), communicating with customers including using various social media and last but not least, road works (of course). Angela also described some of the innovations in traffic control management that have been implemented throughout Sydney over the years. One of these innovations includes the SCATS system. SCATS stands for Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System, and is used to control traffic flow. Before SCATS was used, traffic lights were on a time based cycle, and would change periodically despite traffic flow. Now, when a car pulls up at an intersection, weights under the road detect there is a demand for the lights to change. This makes it much easier to reduce congestion in busy intersections. This system was developed in Australia, but is operational in 27 countries and 263 cities around the world.

Angela showing us the SCATS system in action 

Other innovations include the electronic lane changing system used on the Harbour Bridge, as well as the Live Traffic NSW website. Fiona Simmonds, who works on the Live Traffic NSW website, gave a short talk about the mobile applications that are now available for Android and iPone (which I immediately downloaded!).
RMS are always looking for graduates. Anyone interested in working at RMS should apply through their website, found here:
http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/careers/index.html

Keep an eye on our Facebook for more upcoming events and site visits!
http://www.facebook.com/groups/UTSwieandit/

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September Speakers Workshops at UTS

Between February and July this year, the Sydney Women in Engineering & IT (SWIEIT) Speakers Program have engaged with 25 schools and over 1000 school girls from years 8 to 12. This program is jointly sponsored by the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS), NSW and GHD professional services firm. More information can be found on SWIEIT Speakers Program by clicking here.

Being an active outreach initiative that WiE&IT single-handedly coordinate, speakers for our presentations and school visits are always warmly welcomed. That’s why on Wednesday 5 September and Friday 7 September, women studying either Engineering or IT at UTS were invited to come and participate in an intensive 3 hour workshop designed to improve public speaking skills.  These workshops not only gave participants an opportunity to assess and analyse their public speaking style and presence, but it also gave them an opportunity to get to know some of the other women studying in the Faculty of Engineering and IT. Principal Advisor for Workplace Diversity and Equity from RMS, Ann Pitkeathly, also attended the evenings giving some insight into the importance of public speaking skills in the public sector workplace. The workshops were open to both undergraduates and postgraduates, so there were quite a few fresh faces over the two evenings. Ian Colley from UTS Training and Development Services facilitated the workshops, giving helpful acronyms to help us remember some of the more important aspects of public speaking. Some of these tips were:

Visuals: enhance your presentation. Photos are always better than cartoons!

Audio:  Alter your tone of voice to drive home a point.

Kinaesthetic: moving and touching, getting your audience involved by asking them to raise hands. 

Head: knowledge. Knowing what you are going to talk about makes presenting easier.

Heart: emotions, try to establish an emotional connection and pull at peoples heart strings.

Feet: movement and purpose, moving around the stage but also giving your speech a direction.

Afterwards, all SWIEIT Speakers and workshop attendees were invited to the Great Hall balcony for the annual SWIEIT Speakers Party, to celebrate the years Outreach activities and acknowledge the efforts of all those who contributed to the program throughout the past few years.

WiE&IT Program staff would like to say thank you  to all the girls who have participated in the program, particularly those that have travelled long distances to reach schools in rural communities. 
Anyone who is a female studying or working in these fields, is a cadet or a cooperative scholarship recipient, or UTS female Alumni is encouraged to join the program, so they can share their story and inspire female high school students to consider engineering or IT as a career!

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Engineering & IT Hands on Day for Smarter Futures

If you were around the UTS city campus last Friday 27 April 2012 then you were probably wondering why there were so many students around during Vice Chancellor’s week. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss a memo and class didn’t start back a week early- it was just one of the Women in Engineering and IT's bi-annual ‘Hands on Days’. 

The Women in Engineering and IT (WiE&IT) team invite schools from all across New South Wales to participate in a fun and interactive activities day, aimed at encouraging female school leavers to consider engineering and IT as a study option and future career. Students travelled from places as far as Mudgee, the Central Coast and Newcastle to participate. The activities involved many aspects of engineering and IT learnt through studying at UTS, and ranged from making prosthetic legs, creating computer games and apps, controlling robots and even how to make artificial hearts. 

These activities couldn’t happen without support from industry partners, who donate their time to talk to the students. Each year, WiE&IT encourage industry partners to run an activity, giving the students an insight into engineering and IT career pathways and an opportunity to speak to women already working in these industries.  Companies such as Thales Group, the Roads and Maritime Services, Engineers Without Borders, Thoughtworks Australia and Microsoft Australia all ran activities that taught the girls how engineering and IT are embedded in almost every aspect of our lives. The Engineers Without Borders team did an excellent job of reinforcing this, by proving that the majority of the world's problems can be fixed using engineering solutions. 

Nekisa Mostafavi, a 5^th year Mechanical Engineering student and a facilitator for the ‘Mousetrap Race Cars’ activity, was delighted by the participant’s enthusiasm.

“I liked that everyone was involved, not just the students but the teachers as well,”  Nekisa said.

“I think the ‘Mousetrap’ activity gave them an idea of how engineering [principles] can be incorporated more into high school subjects [such as, science and physics].”

At the end of the day, over 200 hundred students had learnt something new about engineering and IT, and hopefully inspired them to pull us towards the vision of Hands on Day- ‘Engineering and IT for Smarter Futures’. 

By Shellee Murphy-Oates

UTS Events Cadet, Faculty of Engineering & IT

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