Season 5 Special Episode: 9% Is Not Enough - Exploring the Intersectionality of Race & Careers in Engineering during BHM

Impulse To Innovation

This episode features a conversation that explores the intersectionality of race, careers in engineering and joy. These are big topics on their own and become highly amplified and sometimes harmful, when one’s self-identities and protected characteristics intertwine. Today, we’re going to approach them with care and mindful intention as these are themes that we don’t often get to share in this way. My name is Beatrice Udeh and I am the guest host for this Black History Month episode of Impulse to Innovation.

Beatrice Udeh is Head of Diversity at the Arts Marketing Association (AMA). She is an award-winning creative specialist, a theatre producer, broadcaster & poet, and has held positions at both the BBC and Arts Council England. She has a degree in mechanical engineering and was a mechanical design engineer for Rolls Royce.

So, why am I hosting and not Dr Helen Meese? Well, Helen approached me as she was keen for the IMechE to celebrate Black History Month, but wanted to make sure that somebody with lived-experience and a professional EDI background was at the helm to hold the space for the panel. I'm no stranger to the IMechE or to the microphone. I’m a former broadcast journalist and radio producer. I’m a former Mechanical Design Engineer and was an IMechE member nigh on 25 years ago, chairing the Young Members Panel for Derby and Nottingham in the East Midlands.

I am joined on the episode by some amazing people who are leaders in their technical and engineering fields including start-ups, geeks, policymakers and just plain, smart engineers. I’m excited to get to the pulse of what makes them rock and find out how they roll during BHM and beyond.

I wanted to share a few things as provocations for this discussion, here are some interesting stats by the Association of Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK):

“Currently, around 30% of the U.K.’s engineering university graduates are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. However, these underrepresented groups account for only 9% of professional engineers. This is largely due to the barriers and challenges these groups face in recruitment, retention, and advancing professional development.”

With my Diversity-lead hat on, three things stick out for me. One, there is the language - black and minority ethnic. Two, the stats (30% of University graduates vs 9% entering the sector) and three the business case for a thriving workforce: recruitment, retention and career advancement.

According to Engineering UK, Global Majority individuals in the UK engineering sector face several specific challenges. Research has been done to quantify this, with specific examples of inclusion of people and inclusivity written into processes and policies.

1. Not being seen aka representation
2. Different types of bias such as the halo effect, or conformity bias and even attribution bias.

All of these biases impact our behaviours and lead to discrimination even before reaching the workplace, let alone in the recruitment, onboarding and retention processes.

The National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC), released a report this summer highlighting the importance of increasing representation in engineering and emphasising the need for a diverse and skilled workforce. And with a reported 700,000 people contributing to the engineering economy and 'Statista Data' showing that there are 540,000 engineers working in the UK, what does this mean when we intersect this with Black-British history and Global Majority engineering futures?

This months guests are:

Swati Swati is a dedicated, award-winning Biomedical Engineer. Having moved from India where she worked at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, she studied for her engineering degree before starting a new career as a Clinical Technologist at Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust. With a passion for STEM education and Healthcare Swati has set up her own company and now provides a variety of leadership, technical and regulatory affairs courses for students at universities and healthcare related solutions to hospitals and healthcare industries.

Dr Nike Folayan MBE is a chartered engineer and Fellow of the IET. She holds a PhD in Electronics Engineering with referenced international research publications and citations. She sits on a number of advisory boards for various governmental and non-governmental organisations including the Royal Academy of Engineering, Transport for London and the University of Kent Industrial Panel. Nike is recognised as one of the top 100 most influential women in engineering and recieved her MBE for services to diversity in engineering in 2020. Nike is co-founder and chairperson of AFBE-UK, a UK-wide organisation that promotes higher achievement in Engineering particularly for underrepresented groups in engineering. She is presently Technical Director at WSP UK.

Shefali Sharma is an Aeronautics & Space Engineer and Co-Founder & Director of Oxford Dynamics. Seconded to India on behalf of the UK space industry & the Dept. for International Trade in her early career, Shefali has gone on to become a leading Entrepreneur in the space sector creating OxLABS and Oxford Dynamics in less than five years. With multiple honours to her name, she is now focusing on cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence research for the space industry.

Dr Bridget Ogwezi is an award winning doctoral research engineer and civil engineering graduate. She is Senior Strategic Project Manager for Ansys UK. Bridget is passionate about the process of discovery in particular, how to harness human innovation, technology and the materials we build with to make buildings healthier and less damaging to the planet.

Maira Bana is a chartered mechanical engineer with expertise in analysing and resolving cooling and airflow challenges in the data centre industry, through thermal simulation. She manages the CFD Team at RED Engineering Design. Maira is an active IMechE volunteer and Co-Chairs the Construction & Building Services Division, she is also a past Trustee of the Institution. Presently she is a Trustee of SheCanEngineer.

Useful Links:

Assoc. for Black & Minority Ethnic Engineers UK

SheCanEngineer

The Hamilton Commission

Mission 44

IMechE DEI Information

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You can find more information about the work of the IMechE at www.imeche.org