Organized by the Engineering 2030 project, which today has the support of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the USM and CORFO, academics, scientists, researchers, students and representatives of public and private entities discussed common experiences and barriers that affect gender equity.
“Today we have the responsibility to strengthen the female role in these areas because the country is only going to develop if we move from the economy of raw materials to the knowledge economy. We can not achieve that without them”, Patricio Núñez, associate academic director of the 2030 Engineering project, said.
The meeting was also attended by the institutional coordinator of Gender and Deputy Director of Studies of CONICYT, Paula Astudillo, who highlighted the importance of the multiplicity of looks in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM, by its acronym in English). “It is proven that more diverse teams, in terms of gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic origin, allow research with a much higher quality. Therefore, we need more female talents that today are not reaching STEM”, she explained.
The seminar continued with the exhibitions of Barbarita Lara, executive director and co-founder of EMERCOM; Carla Hermann, winner of the L’Oréal UNESCO Prize for Women in Science 2017; María de los Ángeles Valenzuela, from the Ministry of Energy; and María Pilar Gárate, coordinator of the Women in Engineering program at the USM. In addition, a presentation was made by the Association of Women in Engineering (AMIN).
