By Dewi Liliana, Agnes Irwanti, IEEE R10 Women in Engineering Committee
The IEEE’s mission to foster technological innovation and excellence to benefit humanity requires the talents and perspectives of people with different personal, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds. To achieve this mission, IEEE R10 WIE has set up an initiative of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
Main Objective of the DEI Grant 2024
DEI initiative has three objectives:
- Promoting diversity
- Advancing equity
- Fostering inclusion
among R10 WIE members.
The mission is to increase the representation of underrepresented groups, such as women, minorities, and individuals from diverse backgrounds, by creating an environment where all members feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute. Ensuring equitable access to resources, opportunities, and support for professional development and advancement for all R10 WIE members.
To support this mission, R10 WIE launched a program – DEI Grant 2024. We encouraged submissions related to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusivity in engineering education and the workforce.
Themes of the DEI Grant 2024
Three themes were set in this grant, namely;
- Theme 1 – Diversity Awareness
- Theme 2 – Gender Equity and Inclusion
- Theme 3 – Accessible and Inclusive Environment
Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of the proposals among the three themes.
After the socialization at the beginning of the year, two stages were carried out to obtain grantees: Expression of Interest (EOI) and proposal.
In the first stage, as many as 48 EOIs were submitted to the committee, 60% of which came from WIE Affinity groups and 40% from WIE Student Branch Affinity Groups.
Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of received proposals among WIE AGs and WIE SBAGs. Out of the 48 EOIs, 12 applicants were invited to submit DEI Grant proposals, which were coming from the Sri Lanka Section, Victorian Section, Hyderabad Section, Kerala Section, Kolkata Section, and Lahore Section.
Finally, 10 proposals; 70% from WIE Affinity groups and 30% from student branches that meet the selection requirements which include originality, Section support, impact, measurement, and visibility were chosen by the R10 WIE – DEI subcommittees.
The Selected Proposals
The selected proposals are:
- Empowering Diversity in Cybersecurity through Gender-Inclusive Education; WIE Student Branch, Sri Lanka Section
- A step beyond BINARY – Let’s break the GLASS CEILINGS; WIE Affinity Group, Hyderabad Section
- Open Horizons:Bridging Gaps,Building Futures; WIE Affinity Group, Kerala Section
- Women in AI Panel; Victorian Section
- School children for IoT based Accessible and Inclusive Environment creation; WIE Affinity Group, Kolkata Section
- WIN the Room – Women in Negotiation (WIN) the Room; S WIE Affinity Group, ri Lanka Section
- ENABLE: Empowering New Abilities & Broadening Learning Experiences; WIE Student Branch, Kerala Section
- ELLENOVE; WIE Affinity Group, Kerala Section
- SheTech – AI for her; WIE Affinity Group, Lahore Section
- WIEve Epilogue 2.0; WIE Student Branch, Kerala Section
Each grantee is supported by IEEE R0 WIE of a maximum of USD 400 funding. The activities carried out include inclusive teaching practices, equity in research and innovation especially in STEM fields, industry partnerships for inclusion, promoting inclusive workplaces, DEI workshop which aims to raising awareness of DEI among R10 WIE members.