We all know what STEM is and how it shapes the world around us. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) is the backbone upon which the world of the future is being developed and this goes to show just how crucial it is that our young ones take an interest in it. What are we babbling about? We are actually setting up the tone for the introduction to an amazing initiative that has been started by a Pakistani female, Ramla Qureshi; WEP – Women Engineers Pakistan.
WEP is basically a small non-profit group that is working towards the promotion of Science and Technology along with its myriad of applications within the female population of Pakistan. According to Ramla, as per the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Survey; Pakistan is ranked second last out of 142 countries and WEP was founded to alleviate this gap and has been working ever since its foundation towards making things happen.
WEP has campus ambassadors in major engineering universities of Pakistan that make it possible for the WEP team to interact with the enrolled engineering students via seminars and conferences. WEP makes use of this forum to shed a light on the practical world that awaits the young engineers once they are done with their studies while preparing the female students to counter issues such as the workplace or glass-roof harassment. WEP also screens CVs and is hoping to provide graduate profiling to engineering firms in the future. You can check out WEP Facebook page here.
As part of its outreach program, the WEP campus ambassadors visit schools and talk to girls in hopes of dismissing their fear for math and physics at secondary school level.
Ramla Qureshi, 25 years old, is a Fulbright Scholar and MS student in structural and earthquake engineering at State University in New York and runs WEP from there. She says, “The basic reason I started with WEP was to engage the left out half percentage of the country. We have such talented women, but we as a nation do not provide proper avenues for them to practice their faculties. Diversity in engineering is one the major topics under discussion worldwide today. We hope to encourage more girls towards STEM, and hope to direct them toward engineering social entrepreneurship in order to break the shackles of their mind from the myths of job saturation.”
Similarly, Lenovo began an initiative last month for Women’s History Month to honor 10 women kick starters under the age of 31 who are making huge strides in the world of technology. There are so many amazing initiatives right now that are working to empower women in STEM fields that deserve our attention and awareness.
This post was brought to you by Lenovo. The opinions and text are all mine.