South Brazil – 2013 WIE Affinity Group of the Year
I’m very pleased that our group received this award. It was an honor to me. Since winning this award is the validation that we are on the right track in achieving our vision which is to motivate, inspire, engage and advance girls and women in engineering, because we are passionate about doing things right and doing the right thing!When I sent our group inscription to the award, my colleagues didn’t thought we could win. They even laughed at me. But I was so engaged that I insisted, and I gave my best to organize all the documents we had, and at the last day, I sent all the information I could.
The IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group of the Year Awards are given annually to one WIE Affinity Group and that have shown outstanding leadership and initiative in organizing activities.
The WIE Committee will review all nominations and rank-order them based on the criteria listed. The Basis of the award Selection is:
- quality of activities and programs sponsored/co-sponsored by the affinity group;
- quantity of activities and programs;
- the number of participants at regular meetings and other activities and programs;
- demonstrations of outreach programs to young women;
- the number of people served by the outreach;
- communication with its members;
- growth of affinity group membership;
- affinity group Web site
The above criteria take into account that IEEE WIE Affinity Groups vary in size and resources. In reviewing the number of participants in meetings, etc., the WIE Committee will take into consideration the percentage of participants from the available pool of members and individuals who could be served.
Among the activities highlighted the IEEE WIE Unicamp promotes are:
- STAR IEEE Programam – Android Smart Girls design, along with state high school Hilton Federici in Campinas;
- educational workshops with electronic kits in school;
- periodic lectures by leading scientists and engineers ;
- participation in the Open Doors University event at Unicamp (UPA) with the sample “Future Engineers: Be welcome”;
- visiting high schools and elementary lectures on engineering education for young people ;
- participation and support for university events such as: the Electrical Engineering Week at Unicamp;
- celebrating 100 years of Alan Turing;
- Meet the Students of the Department of Computer Eng and Industrial Automation FEEC ( EADCA );
- V Symposium on Signal Processing Unicamp 2014;
- the promotion of social encounters between undergraduate students and graduate students , as Cafés with WIE;
- support the formation of other groups WIE in Brazil;
- conducting research on the minority in engineering careers;
- creating opportunities for technical development, as the 1st Girls Hackday for Android Apps;
We carry the conviction that we still have to work more and more for women and young people to be successful and feel attracted to careers in science, technology and engineering to work for a better Brazil !
The force of the IEEE and the IEEE WIE Unicamp South Brazil Section is in their voluntarism: this vibrant community of professionals from various fields, who daily work to advance the technology to benefit the humanity.
Clarissa Loureiro
Chair of South Section WIE Unicamp