E&T Engineering Technology Magazine July 2017 [antikvár]

OPINION editoria: Nine per cent is not enough, so you may notice sometliing different about finis issue Edilor'sLetter by Dickon Ross PPA Awards 2017 Shorlllsted: Clem Chambers, Columnlsl o( the Year. Business Media; Vital! Vllaliev, Columnist ol Ihe Year, Business Media: Amanda Williams. Publishing Innovator ollhe Year, Annual Turnover Under LIOm; Amanda Williams, Team Uadet ol Ihe Year. Business and Consumer Media: Rebecca NofthfteW. Writer ol ihe Year. Business Media BSME Awards 2016 Shortlisted: Dickon Ross, Editor, business brand, monthly; John Rooney. Art Director, business brand; lustin Poilaid, Columnist, business brand TABBIE Awards 2016 Gold Award. Best Special Section: Dickon Ross. John Rooney, Chris Edwards. CrUpirt Andrews. Caroline CllioH. Spectrum' Gold Awaid. Best Regular Column: Wtali Vilaliev, 'After AJf Silver Award, Front cover, digital imagery: John Hconey, David McCullough, Nadia Atidout. Gillian Abbott, 'Immigration' Honourable mention. Feature ArUcle: Chris Edwards. Recipe for For a full list go to www.eandtmagazine.com/about-u: [email protected] 1 Vitall Vitaliev [email protected] lebeccaNorttifleld __^JadeFöll iTiinFryer [email protected] losh Loeb [email protected] lack Louqhran, Hilary Lamb rineFamell.LDmaSharpe lohn Rooney David McCullouQh, Nadia Ahdout ---- Abbott WNikkj-farnlett Amanda Williams amandawiiliams@lheieLorg !Louise Hau lhall@theietoig i [email protected]+44(0)l43g ! Ni)aLanc3sternlancasler@lheieL0fa+44(0)1438767233 Ndh h kla_ 44 0)1438767313 : Dav^^H^'n! ¦ :Ti» 44(0)121705212a EmmaHo han «44(0)1438767228 ¦ •iandyMerc8rmmeicer@lheieiorQ-»44{0)l43876K7l singleissueei3 En^neenngSTechnt^ogylspKxIucedlOtmssaye ieeiingSTecnn(«ogylspi(xlucedlOtmssayearbylErrSer\ncesUmited.a ^ry of i^swuüonof Engineering andTecfinokjgydcn.foilhelET The nngS InailutKxiolEngineeringSTechnology.Allnghis/eserved No part of this putiicalion may be reproduced, sioredirisretiieva! system, or transmilied in any k Jut ZOia-OecZOte: 139.109 TB Its magazines are printed c "SHE SAID to me. 'You're going to experience something I experience every day: walking into a room completely dominated by the opposite gender'." That's how Alex Davern, president and CEO of National Instruments (NI), kicked off the first Women's Leadership Forum to be held at NI Week in Austin last month. He was quoting Shelley Gretlein, the forum's organiser and NI's vice president of corporate marketing. "I want to see a line at the women's restroom for the first time at NI week 2017!" she told the lively forum. Speakers stressed the business reasons for wanting more women in engineering, besides the professional and social ones. Tricia Berry of the University of Texas at Austin immediately found a solid business case for diversity as she was handed a clip-on wireless microphone. "Where do Iput this?" she asked, and pointed out it would have been designed very differently if women had been involved: "If you don't have everyone in the room, you are going to get a design that only works for a part of the population!" More diverse groups are better at solving problems, the forum heard, which makes intuitive sense because a range of people bring different experiences, talents and ideas to the party But research published by the National Academy of Sciences of the USA shows the diversity effect goes much further. The clue is in the title of the highly mathematical paper by Lu Hong and Scott E Page: 'Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers'. In short, diversity trumps ability "Our result has implications for organizational forms and management styles, especially for problem-solving firms and organizations," the paper concludes. "In an environment where competition depends on continuous innovation and introduction of new products, firms with organizational forms that take advantage of the power of functional diversity should perform well." Now what kind of environment does that sound like? An engineering one? Diversity is about much more than gender, of course, but it is a vital part and women represent a vast pool of potential talent. This issue comes out just a week before Women in Engineering Day on 23 June, during which the lET is running its '9% is not enough' campaign in reference to the number of women in UK engineering. Why is it so low? There are many reasons, of course, from sad old sexism (a problem in games development. p56) to a lack of role models (we interview some of the best). Engineering has long had an image problem (geeky in the US, hard hat and spanner in the UK), which plays particularly badly with women and girls. How can we fix it? We asked some of London's top creative agencies how they'd go about it and you can vote on their concepts (p26-38). In this issue we also turn the statistics upside down with our ratio of male/female images. For the 91 % it's a little glimpse of how it feels to be in the 9%. Did you know? „ women outnumber men in this issue Engineers Great: or want to be ^ Desig ifSl ¦ n ¦ A Children I Sic War heroes So® 3 effigies writers Jidren he rest The rest TOTAL* Female 161 Male 15