Amiosec discusses getting more women into the tech industry on the BBC News
Date
28th November, 2019
Location
Cheltenham Town Football Club
Description
Through our STEM outreach work with the NCSC’s Cyber Schools Hub project, a brilliant opportunity arose to speak on the BBC’s Newsbeat about the tech industry, climate change and how we can recruit more women into the industry.
Lauren Baddeley, a Software Engineer at Amiosec, has been a very enthusiastic STEM Ambassador for several years and is very passionate about advocating for more women to join the engineering industry. Since joining the company nearly 3 years ago, she has built Amiosec’s STEM outreach programme from the ground up. From organising activities for the Gretton Science Festival to running workshops at Do Cyber in Bristol, presenting on the history of cryptography at CYBERUK 2019 and taking part in Tewkesbury School Mock Interviews, Lauren has made sure that Amiosec has engaged with local schools and events to promote engineering careers. Working with students from a young age ensures that they are given every opportunity to learn about the different careers they could have within the STEM area, allowing them to choose STEM subjects at school which will enable them to then go onto university or an apprenticeship in STEM. By working with students Amiosec are helping to feed the pipeline with future engineers.
Today, Amiosec are involved in and support the NCSC’s Cyber Schools Hub project. This initiative has put Amiosec in touch with schools from across the county and has enabled us to inspire students to think about a career in STEM. Recently we ran a cryptography workshop at the EmPowerCyber Event, which saw 800 Year 8 girls attend to learn more about the cyber security industry. Through our connection with the Cyber Schools Hub project, the organiser Madeline Howard (Director at CyNam) got in touch with Lauren to ask if she would be up for discussing the tech industry, with a focus on the work that the NCSC’s Cyber Schools Hub project has been doing, on the BBC News. It was an opportunity she couldn’t refuse.
On Thursday 28th November, Lauren along with Madeline and apprentices Taylor and Nathan from Cyber Security Associates went along to the Cheltenham Town Football Club to visit Steffan Powell in the BBC’s Newsbeat Campervan. The Newsbeat team have been travelling across the whole of the UK to discuss different topics relating to the upcoming election, and in Cheltenham they were focusing on the tech industry and climate change. Steffan discussed how Cheltenham is a big area in the tech industry with GCHQ and other local cyber security companies. Madeline discussed the NCSC’s Cyber Schools Hub initiative to get more girls into tech while Lauren talked about how exciting it is to work in the engineering industry where there are always lots of interesting challenges to solve.
The conversation then moved onto climate change. Lauren discussed how it is going to be the engineering industry that helps to solve the issues we are seeing at the moment, and so more investment in this area is needed, especially with encouraging more women into the sector. More women will bring new ideas and different perspectives, which will drive innovation and lead to solutions for the problems we are currently facing.
If you missed Lauren live on the BBC News yesterday, then you can watch the clip below.
Lauren then discussed the same issues with a focus on climate change, with Steffan Powell live on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra later that day. This can be listened to on BBC Sounds – Newsbeat in Cheltenham.
Lauren discussed that the engineering industry contributes a large portion of the UK’s annual GDP – 26% to be precise which equates to about £127 billion contributed to our economy (WES Statistics). Given its size, more investment should be made to encourage women to join the sector. Currently only about 12% of engineers are women (WES Statistics), which means that we are not working to our full potential. Recruiting more women to the industry will open up new ideas and drive innovation, helping to come up with solutions for the big climate change issues.
At Amiosec, we care both about the environment and about inspiring the next generation of engineers – we recycle a whole range of items, such as paper, plastics and batteries; we use efficient and low powered LED lightbulbs; and as previously discussed, we take every opportunity we can to inspire students and more women into a career in STEM.
Amiosec actively encourages its employees to get involved in projects that can facilitate young people’s involvement in STEM and so it was fantastic to have an employee of Amiosec representing the company on the national news discussing such important topics.
