28 Jun 2023

Women in the engineering industry are said to be facing several challenges in their profession.

As such, empowering them so that they can achieve their full potential in their careers as engineers and leaders remains critical.

It is said that having women in the engineering cadre empowered would help them expand the industry’s image and the technology professions as a positive force in improving the quality of life and further demonstrate the value of diversity and inclusion.

It was against such a backdrop that panelists, comprising women engineers at the annual Women in Engineering Roundtable Talk, held in Gaborone recently, unanimously drew from the theme, Inclusion and Collective Activism, to implore men to enable a friendly and inclusive environment for the females.

It was revealed that Botswana’s engineering industry comprised 55 per cent women, but that, according to one of the roundtable panelists, Ms Prudence Mabua of Diamond Trading Company Botswana (DTCB), was not enough.

On the other hand, it is said that women represented half of the world’s population and their contribution remained critical in unlocking innovative solutions, given that they could bring diversity to the work culture and lead teams to think divergently, which was by far the greatest benefit of having women engineers in a team.

Ms Mabua, however, said even though they called for inclusion, often times women were the ones who stripped themselves of the chances to be counted in and given opportunities.

“It is time women changed. We need to talk about changing the woman’s mindset as they seem to struggle with doing so. Women have natural instincts and therefore should be able to come up with ways of helping others,” she said.

She urged them to stop supporting men over other women, but instead endeavour to partner and network, something she said would attract young women to join in.

A young engineer, founder of Drones for Africa, Ms Marang Mbaakanyi said the ground was not welcoming for women.

“In terms of real inclusion, it is not a matter of having numbers, but being the decision maker and the woman in the boardroom to be heard. 

We do not need to spite each other. It is worrying that very few women in executive positions have an open door policy,” Ms Mbaakanyi said.

She also said inclusion should be implemented and not just talked about and therefore women engineers needed to observe, listen and not absorb because they were problem solvers who could impact positively on others.

On the other hand, discussion about encouraging girls to do STEM subjects also sprouted. 

It was also discussed that government and culture played a role in the technological space. 

The conclusion was that time was nigh for women in the education system to also address issues concerning themselves. Ends