In February WISE joined forces with the Computer Science Society to host the University’s first Women in Technology Conference. The whole EPS Community was invited to attend a day of talks, workshops and networking sessions from invited industry speakers and sponsors working in the technology sector. It was amazing to see such enthusiasm from attendees from all walks of life and all levels of experience!

CSS & WISE - WIT 2
CSS & WISE - WIT

It is also with great pleasure that we announce we have teamed up with Code First: Girls to offer a fantastic and free beginners coding course on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Git, GitHub collaboration, and more front-end programming. All are languages that teach how to design websites, improve its design and how to push it online. This course lasted for 6 weeks and was a huge success among our members.

Also in February the committee had the opportunity to meet Professor Averil Macdonald, Non-Executive Director of the national WISE campaign, following her talk People Like Me – a revolutionary new way to engage girls with Physics and Engineering. We are looking forward to working collaboratively with them in the future!

Our WISE Inspire evening in March saw inspirational female role models from academia and industry speak about their career paths, answer questions from students and offer their advice. This time we welcomed members of the alumni community to share their experiences and expertise. Everyone seemed thoroughly engaged and keen to find out more from our intriguing guests.

In the last few weeks of term the committee attended the Develop Your Society event organised by the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Here we received expert advice from alumni volunteers on effect communications, social media and building reputation. We gained invaluable feedback regarding marketing, social media, digital strategy and membership retention.

We held our AGM at the end of term and we now welcome several fresh faces to our committee. Helena Dodd will be taking the reigns as our new President we welcome Lucy Fox as Treasurer, Caitlin Adams as Outreach Officer, Aimee Goodall is Secretary, Sophie Kiedaisch and Serena Cruickshank-Hull are our new Social Secretaries, and Helena Bower is taking over Publicity. We are keen to provide as many events and opportunities as possible to our members to integrate, form networks and gain knowledge of career opportunities to help inspire the next generation of female scientists and engineers. As ever, we welcome your suggestions or recommendations!

WISE New Committee 2016

So what are our plans for the future? We intend to organise two more conferences in the next academic year, launch a new outreach scheme and arrange more industrial trips. If you would like to sponsor and help us turning these plans into reality, find us at wiseatuob@gmail.com.

Finally, keep your fingers crossed for us at the EPS Societies’ Awards and thanks for all the support so far!  If you have enjoyed our updates please nominate us!  Last year we won Head of College Idea of the Year and would love to continue the winning streak!

If you are interested in supporting us or representing your field at one of our events, or you are simply curious to learn more, please contact us at eps-community@contacts.bham.ac.uk – we would love to hear from you! Also, keep an eye on our Facebook page.

Best wishes,

WISE Committee