“Ingenias”, the project for attracting female talent to the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering of the UVa, has obtained funding from the FECYT (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology)
The “InGenias” project, developed by professors and female students of the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering of the University of Valladolid (UVa) to increase the number of technologic vocations in their Bachelor´s Degrees, has been chosen by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) for benefiting from the grants for promoting scientific, technologic and innovative culture.
“Ingenias”, the project for attracting female talent to the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering of the UVa, has obtained funding from the FECYT (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology)
The Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology has chosen this initiative in which the professors and the students of the School show the students of Secondary Education the social applications of Telecommunications and the working opportunities offered in different scopes.
“InGenias” presented its candidature in Line 2 of this call addressed to the funding of projects about Education and Scientific vocations. There were 279 initiatives presented and finally 73 of them were chosen.
Altogether, the FECYT depending from the Ministry of Science and Technology gives 3,250,000 euros in this new edition for developing 296 outreach and communication projects on science and innovation chosen and classified in four big action lines: Line 1, scientific, technologic and innovation culture; Line 2, education and scientific vocations; Line 3, citizen science and Line 4, structures in Network (Network of Scientific and Innovation Culture Units and Fairs of Science).
InGenias
“InGenias” started in 2019 as a response to the decrease of students in technologic and scientific degrees, especially within Engineering and among female students, an inclination detected not only in the University of Valladolid but also in the rest of the European universities in spite of the increased demand within the working sphere of professional more technical and technological and an increased presence of technology within our lives.
Its main goal is to awaken technological vocations among the female students of secondary education by offering a more social and human perspective of these studies. They have shown them how technology improves our lives, and furthermore, they have let them know the potential and cross-cutting nature of these kinds of engineering, especially Telecommunications Engineering when they want to join the working market.
In the project coordinated by the full professor of the Department of Signal Theory and Communications and Telematics Engineering, Noemí Merayo, they have involved in this new edition, which will start in February with nine professors and twelve students of the School. The team will offer lectures to the students of the 3rd and 4th course of Secondary Education from different high schools in Valladolid and the surrounding areas, so they could know their experience in the Bachelor´s Degree and the Master.
“The female students see themselves reflected on the university female students; they show their senior theses and explain their own experience in the degree. The novelties this year are some of the prototypes in which we are now working such as a glasses for visual disabilities and a digital braille reader in an e-book format, therefore they will see that electronic devices not only serve in issues such as networks and mobile phones, but also for working in acoustics, aeronautics, in automotive communication, bioengineering or the design of health applications”- says Noemí Merayo.
Improving the knowledge of engineering which makes an engineer is fundamental, according to the coordinator of “Ingenias”, as in her opinion during the years of secondary education the work carried out does not show. “In the high schools they teach Mathematics and Physics, with which engineering works, but they do not pay attention to their creative part; without this part most of the time we cannot resolve the problems which happen in the projects we carry out”.
A bigger presence of women in engineering, and also a bigger presence of men in those areas (especially in health areas) in which they are less. It is necessary to break bias with which unconsciously we work, and we must find new solutions to old problems. According to Merayo, “when something is biased, the possibilities of extending horizons are reduced. So, undoubtedly, if there were more female engineers, the action line would change and would give a greater enrichment in both sides”.
InGenias is done with the collaboration of the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit and the Scientific Park of the UVa, and it counts on the support of the Regional Government of Valladolid and the Official Association of Telecommunications Engineers of Spain.
