2015 Young Women's Engineering Symposium (YWES)
This weekend, The Janksters were led by exceptional members, Anisha Patel (Class of 2016) and Kimberly Zhang (Class of 2016), in planning the annual Young Women's Engineering Symposium, in which nine female engineers ran workshops with high school girls interested in engineering, empowering us as women involved in STEM. Through this event, we were able to reach out to students from all over the Bay Area, including 15 local FRC and FTC teams!The following inspiring women were able to attend:
Shraddha Chaplot (Electrical Engineering at Cisco Systems)
Olga Rodriguez (Civil and Transportation Engineering at CH2M)
Juanita Sanchez (Structural Engineering at Jakaby Engineering)
Kathlyn Terrazas (Mechanical Engineerin at Space Systems Loral)
Liz Murphy (Computer Science at Savioke)
Alison Tse (Mechanical Engineering at Savioke)
Tessa (Robotics at Savioke)
Lesley Telford (Biomedical Engineering at Abbott Vascular)
Isis Anchalee
Open Panel
Structural Engineering
The day started off with a short speech from Isis Anchalee, who started the hashtag #iLookLikeAnEngineer, which promoters gender inclusiveness in the STEM field. Her words on gender equality were truly empowering to all, especially those who may be minorities in a male-dominated robotics team.Then, all participants attended three different workshops, allowing each student to hear from and converse with the engineers in small groups about the fields she has the most interest in. After, everyone gathered for an open panel with the speakers, in which questions were taken from both the student leaders and the audience. The engineers were able to discuss a wide range of topics, including the importance of inclusiveness and perseverance in their fields. Luckily, the YWES women were able to stay for a fun lunch with Team 1967 before leaving!All in all, YWES was very successful, and we hope that each participant gained more knowledge and interest in the STEM field as well as the motivation to pursue it. It was inspiring to see how many young women are passionate about engineering, and we hope to inspire even more next year!