Today, Global IQ Group celebrates International Women in Engineering Day!
International Women in Engineering Day recognises the work and achievements of female engineers and highlights the many exciting opportunities that exist for women in engineering. The theme of INWED 2021 is ‘Shape the World’ – a celebration of how women are helping to create a better, more innovative, and more sustainable world through engineering.
The visibility of women in engineering, whilst improving, is still not as high as it should be. Of the Australian STEM workforce, women represent only 28% – with 12.8% of those jobs actually being engineering roles. Celebrating INWED is essential as the path to increasing gender diversity within these fields relies heavily on the recognition of the important progress and achievements made by women in engineering and empowering women to enter the field through strong female role models.
As a 50% female-owned organisation, Global IQ Group are deeply committed to promoting gender diversity and equal opportunity, especially in the fields of STEM. CEO and Co-founder, Liza Taylor, reflected on her career journey so far, highlighting not only the importance of having female role models in engineering but also the amazing and vast opportunities available to women in the industry.
“Growing up, I’ve always loved science and I wanted to solve problems like fixing the hole in the ozone layer. I didn’t know any women engineers, but I read that Cindy Crawford started Chemical Engineering so that sounded pretty cool. I was fortunate that my high school chemistry and physics teachers encouraged me to follow my passion. And in 1994, I was awarded a Co-op Scholarship in Industrial Chemistry at UNSW.
Reflecting on my own career journey, engineering and science have taken me from the R&D lab to product management, marketing to running my own consulting business and being on the AIRAH Board.
I am grateful to have met so many female engineer role models who have inspired me along the way. From sustainability to sales, from product development to policymakers; today we celebrate their accomplishments and the impact they make every day.”
