Today, there was a meeting organized by the Permanent Mission of Israel to present a project three female Israeli high-school students have been developing in the aerospace industry. Mr. Danon and Ms. Sommer led the meeting by stating the necessity to empower women and continue to contribute with innovation, engineering, and science.

Next, Ms. Riazi told of her experience: at 16 years old, she found her 70-year-old mother teaching herself to read, and decided to change societal norms by becoming an engineer instead of a teacher, as she was expected. STEM is not a dry concept anymore: being a scientist is a way to participate and contribute to the world for women out there.

Mr. Alhendawi stated that with 1:14 women graduate in science, compared to 1:9 in men and 1:20 women graduate in engineering and 1:5 in men, women must be encouraged to choose to study these fields and destroy the disparity that clearly exists in the numbers. Ms. Radisky finally explained the Women Leaders initiative that was developed by the Israel Aerospace Industries before a video was played about this program. This unique project allows girls to gain experience in the fields of engineering, physics, and high technology, be surrounded by their supporters, feel fulfillment by working together, create prototypes, and actually execute their ideas.

Three young women of this program explained how their exposure to engineering influenced them to pursue careers in STEM and gave them skills in leadership and creativity. Specifically, Doreen Cohen explained her group’s solution to the tragedy of forgetting young children in locked cars or school transportations: the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which allows the driver to know how many children are on a bus with radio waves and an electronic detection system.

Meeting: “Women Engineers of Tomorrow”

Date/Location: Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016; 13:15-14:30; Conference Room 8

Speakers: Evelyn Sommer, Chair, North American Jewish Congress; Ambassador David Roet, Israel’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Ahmad Alhendawi, United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth; Atefeh Riazi, United Nations Chief Information Technology Officer, Assistant Secretary-General, Office of Information and Communications Technology; H.E. Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations; Elana Fishler, Kira Radisky, Inbal Sternberg, Omer Privas, Gaya Nachshon, Dorin Cohen

Written By: WIT Representative Jin Yoo

Edited By: WIT Representative Alex Margolick

Photo Credit: Alamy