The Institution of Engineering & Technology –(IET) recently launched the event titled “Young Woman Engineer of the Year 2019” ceremonially at Members lounge IESL premises, on 8th of March 2019 remarking the International Women’s’ Day. Event was graced by few eminent personalities in the field of engineering Mrs. Niranjanie Rathnayaka immediate past president The Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka and Emeritus Professor in Department of Civil Engineering University of Moratuwa as the chief guest for the event and Mrs. Rajitha Jayasuriya, Director sales and marketing / capital heights by Access Engineering PLC as the Guest of Honor for the event. They were joined by other distinguished IET members Eng. Rukmal Jayasinghe, Director Minel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. and the Chairman of IET Sri Lanka Network, Dr. (Eng) Lalith Liyanage CEO at Lanka Logistics & Technologies Ltd, Ministry of defence Sri Lanka, Vice-chairman of IET Sri Lanka Network, Eng. N.A.G. Senanayaka, Deputy General manager Sri Lanka Telecom and Former Chairman of IET Sri Lanka Network, Mrs.Yamuna Samarasinghe past General Manager of Ceylon Electricity Board and Eng. Rohan Seneviratne Deputy General Manager of Ceylon Electricity Board. IET UK is a professional institution for engineering and technology community and its accreditation, covers a broad spectrum of engineering and technology subjects. IET – Sri Lanka is the responsible body in local context which promotes
IET global vision to engineer a better world and by informing, inspiring and influencing stakeholders in the membership. IET Young Professionals Sri Lanka in collaboration with IET Sri Lanka organized an awarding ceremony with the sole intention of developing interest among talented Sri Lankan women to take engineering as a career option and to develop their careers to promote engineering as well as to develop innovative skills to enhance career prospects. As per the Women’s engineering society UK, Only 11% of the engineering workforce is female (1). And only 8% of registered engineers and technicians (i.e.CEng, IEng, EngTech) are women (2). Hence, the intention of organizing this event is to popularize the engineering and technology as a profession among the women in Sri Lanka. Moreover, when considering
the economy, women contribute a significant portion of the domestic Dollar earnings through unskilled labour services to Middle East countries with many hardships. Our aim is to promote engineering & technology to the Sri Lankan women while promoting engineering as a whole to the whole population. It has been a long argued that men were better than women or vice versa. However, as per the IET view, it is perilous to divide and argue further and it’s time to encourage and promote all genders to play an equal role for the development of the country to meet millennium goals set forth. During the event, the website for the event ttp://ietypslywe. blogspot.com was unveiled
to the public to find more details about the awarding ceremony and the criteria for application. Also, the organizing committee set out the plan for the event for the public. The event will be held from August following preliminary screening processes to shortlist the best of the best candidates. The final session will be held in November and the selected candidate will be crowned as the Young Woman Engineer of the year. With the participation of finalist IET Young Woman Engineer, we will conduct several programs to promote engineering among school children in the form of voluntary activities planned for the year.
