IIWE 2003 Summer Program

IIWE 2003 : the third time’s the charm !

Thank you everyone for your fine participation and support during the IIWE 2003 sessions. I think we all agree that the IIWE found a very good balance with this year’s program. Our objective was to continue presenting professional issues of particular concern to women engineers around the globe and, rather than focusing on individual countries as we did in the past, to outline large “blocks” of engineering traditions. Of course, we continued with our industrial visits (Schlumberger, the Poste, and Globecast), and our partner IBM France again graciously invited us for an entire day at their premises.

But we also had a number of “firsts” this year. For example, this was the first time that a whole day took place on the campus of our partner: the University of Paris Sud. We were also joined this year by participants in the WSU (the Women’s Summer University), an EU program. The IIWE 2003 was also the first time the IIWE took a look at ethical questions. Another new feature was the Parisian Engineering Treasure Hunt weekend activity… which coincided with the Tour de France bicycle race.

The evaluations show clearly that the IIWE program had the impact desired – lots of enthusiastic women engineering students are now more knowledgeable about the world they live in and the profession that lies ahead.

In terms of numbers, here’s what has happened:

In IIWE 2001 we welcomed

30 student participants from 16 countries
13 staff participants from 3 countries
and presenting 4 engineering cultures

IIWE 2002 the figures jumped to:

83 student participants from 25 countries
57 staff participants from 21 countries
5 IIWE alumni participants from 5 countries
and presenting 11 engineering cultures

And then, in IIWE 2003 figures slipped to:

43 student participants from 18 countries click here for participants
39 staff participants from 17 countries click here for staff
7 IIWE alumni participants from 4 countries click here for alumni
and presenting 7 area cultures click here for program

Click here for IIWE 2003 Schedule of Events

So why the drop? Well, there were a number of reasons. First, the year was just generally bad in terms of participation in international programs. The IIWE in particular had difficulties with SARS, forcing most of our Asian participants to drop out at the last minute. Then many of our Middle Eastern participants got caught by the visa issue – applications were not processed by the consulates in time to allow many to attend sessions.

But the evaluations showed that the smaller size of this session did not diminish the quality of the program. In fact, many suggested that the IIWE consider doing only small sessions!

THANK YOU again to everyone!