Stannah Celebrate International Women in Engineering Day 2019
Here at Stannah we are proud of our engineering heritage, over 150 years of it. For our founder, Joseph Stannah, engineering and education were at the heart of everything he did. He saw education, in particular, as the cornerstone of society. “It is undoubtedly the duty of every engineer to instruct their share of the rising generation, but it is also their duty to do it in such a way as shall conduce most to the general prosperity of the future”.
Through our Joseph Stannah Foundation we want to encourage an early interest in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects and careers. 2019 is the 100th anniversary of the Women in Engineering Society a charitable organisation which offers inspiration, support and professional development to women engineers. In the week preceding International Women in Engineering Day on June 23rd (INWED19) a team of female engineers from Stannah will be visiting three local schools to take part in assemblies for year 8 students. They will talk about why the 12 and 13 year olds should consider a career in engineering; the opportunities are so varied. Many of the female engineers at Stannah never expected to have a career in disciplines that have traditionally been dominated by men and are keen to share the variety of routes they have taken to reach the positions they are at now. Jobs in engineering and all STEM subjects at Stannah cover so many areas of the business, mechanical, electrical, design, IT, supply chain, and finance to name a few.
Pupils at the schools, both boys and girls, will be invited to take part in a fun competition to either design a robot that can enter a cave to retrieve clues that will help to unlock a treasure chest or to find a product in a supermarket that has been excessively packaged and re-design it to minimise packaging. The winner will receive a £50 Amazon voucher with two runners up each receiving a £25 voucher.
As part of the celebrations for INWED19 Stannah have created a video showcasing the breadth of work undertaken in engineering across the company. Andy Hastilow, Managing Director of Stannah Stairlifts and Platform Lift Operations explained “We want to encourage pupils to think about their subject choices for GCSE and for girls in particular to understand that a career in engineering can be inspiring and fulfilling”