Women’s Engineer Day: Are we really contributing to closing this gap?

By Camila Martínez, telematics civil engineer and mentor of the AUI/NRAO PROVOCA program provoke.org

We are in the middle of 2023 and the advances in technology are undeniable. Very recently we were all shocked by the launch of the Open AI company and its Chat GPT tool, which has been a tremendous advance in Artificial Intelligence applications that anyone can use, from planning a trip to writing an application letter to a a graduate. However, despite the daily advances in technology that we have, there is still a limited number of women with the necessary confidence in their technical skills to apply for the various jobs available in the field.

This is how I saw it in my work in the last call for a vacancy in “Software Engineering”, in which less than 20% of the applicants were women and even despite this low percentage, the one chosen for the position was a woman, which confirms that you met all the skills for that position.

Unfortunately, I see that these figures have not changed much since I began to study Telematics Civil Engineering at the Universidad de la Frontera, in Temuco (the city where I was born and raised). About 10 years ago, of about 60 people that we admitted at that time, there were only 4 women, and what hurts even more was the case of a colleague, who despite her interest and potential, had to drop out of school to help her family in field activities, since we were in the poorest region of the country and she had no other choice.

Unfortunately, the above scenario is not very different from what we are experiencing as a country in the area, and even at a regional level, where according to a study by IT-Talent, Chile is the Latin American country with the fewest number of women working in technology. with only 18% female participation. This number is even below the regional average, which is 23%, and well below countries like Peru (41%) and Argentina (45%). As the same study declares, this figure is alarming if one considers that approximately by the year 2050, 75% of a company’s employees should have knowledge in these areas.

The foregoing leads me to wonder, what are we doing as a country and/or society to balance these figures? How do we get more girls and women interested in careers in the STEM area? I think the answer must lie in creating role models for these girls. Only then can they realize that studying engineering is possible and not difficult. That they are capable of doing it, since they have all the abilities and skills to achieve it…you don’t have to be geniuses! But I think it’s not just about giving some examples of successful women in the area, but about creating a sufficient support network so that they can feel safe to ask questions, tell their stories, clarify doubts. Let them know that it is normal that one day they feel that they cannot, because we have all been through it, but the next day we can get up again, perhaps ask for help, or seek a new approach and solve that problem that we found difficult to overcome.

A few years ago I trained to be part of the PROVOCA mentoring program, which is an initiative that seeks to awaken scientific vocations and increase the participation of underrepresented groups, accompanying and guiding students in the different stages of their scientific and professional path, providing them with tools to improve their training, communication and leadership. And it is that these strategies are key when making a change in the previous figures mentioned. We cannot stay only with the fact of increasing the number of scholarships for women in engineering (which is undoubtedly a tremendous support), I believe that we must go further and create exclusive retention plans for women, which allow them to feel supported and accompanied during your decision to study engineering and/or a career in the STEM area (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

I am convinced that this is one of the best ways to solve the great gender gap that we currently have in the area and thus we can provide the professionals that Chile needs to face the new technological advances that we will have in the future. Changing feminine realities depends on ourselves!