Empowering Women Leaders

Imagine a world where women and men are equitably represented as leaders in systems engineering.

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Working Group Purpose & Mission

International Women's Day March 8th

Mission

EWLSE's vision is to champion a world where women and are men equitably represented as leaders in systems engineering. Our mission is to create an open systems engineering environment welcoming to all; promote the demonstrated value of women as systems engineers and leaders; engage women and girls in engineering and systems engineering at all levels of education around the world; and enable increased participation and retention of women in systems engineering leadership.

EWLSE IW2019 Group Photo

To advocate for women, please consider getting involved!

Share Your Stories

How do you advocate for women leaders in systems engineering?  Please send your stories to ewlse@incose.net.

Support EWLSE

Do you have new ideas, comments, suggestions or feedback? 

Or do you want to become a more active part of empowering women in Systems Engineering? 

Then please do contact us.

Initiative

TechOps Domain

163

Members

2015

Established

Contact us at ewlse@incose.net

Chairs

Anabel Fraga, EMEA Sector

Stueti Gupta, Asia Oceania Sector

Victoria Patterson and Eric Specking, Americas Sector

Federica Robinson-Bryant, Associate Director of DEI

Alice Squires, Founder

General Leaders

Marilee Wheaton

Shamsnaz V. Bhada

Heidi Hahn

Erika Palmer

Scope

EWLSE's scope is to broaden awareness of the current state of women in leadership, remove obstacles for women seeking engineering related leadership roles, collaborate with professional societies, industry, government, academia, and individual advocates, and celebrate the benefits of diversity throughout our culture. Ultimately, we want to integrate efforts to raise international awareness of the value of women leaders in engineering and systems engineering; develop and promote successful strategies for women navigating the systems engineering leadership journey across cultures, geographic locations, and domains; and drive the evolution to an open welcoming professional environment where institutions stimulate motivated and qualified applicants to seek leadership opportunities in systems engineering. What success looks like:

  • The systems engineering environment is open to all:
    1. Boundaries and partitions that limit success are removed.
    2. Women are and know they can aspire to be leaders in systems engineering.
  • All systems engineers are highly valued: ?
    1. Diverse leadership styles are respected and included.
    2. Systems engineering leadership reflects the community.
  • Women and engineering go hand-in-hand:
    1. At least half of graduating engineers are women.
    2. Female engineering graduates choose an engineering career.
    3. Women and men equally share technical leadership.
  • We collaborate as equals:
    1. Women and men have a seat at the table.
    2. Cross-cultural collaboration is the norm.
    3. 3. We work together across domains to build a solution for all.
  • 5. Mentors and enablers are part of the culture:
    1. Only knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitude matter.
    2. There is engagement at all levels of education. 
    3. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are integral to the foundation of systems engineering.

Goals

Our working group goals include the following:
  • 1. Highlighting INCOSE Leadership:
    1. Identify and pursue international opportunities.
    2. Nominate and support women as board members, directors, chairs, fellows, pioneers.
    3. Support INCOSE TLI members.
  • Collaborating With Others:
    1. Connect with academia.
    2. Network across INCOSE sectors and chapters.
    3. Reach out to other societies and groups.
  • Building Mentor/Mentee Relationships:
    1. Support INCOSE mentor and mentee matching.
    2. Support to women pursuing leadership roles.
    3. Encourage pursuit of SE competencies.
  • Celebrating Women:
    1. Demonstrate impact of women in technical leadership.
    2. Share success stories of empowered women.
    3. Publish works that showcase women.
  • Raising Awareness Through Research:
    1. Advance related gender and diversity research.
    2. Share research findings on status and progress.
    3. Invite researchers to showcase their work.
  • Ongoing Outreach for the Future:
    1. Mentor systems engineering practitioners.
    2. Raise awareness of diversity goals across INCOSE sponsored global events.
    3. Support initiatives to build a better world through a systems approach.
    4. Showcase people who are making a difference in the world.
    5. Work to achieve gender parity in systems engineering leadership.

Outcomes

Outcomes include:
  • Consistently raise awareness of the EWLSE vision, mission, scope, and goals.
  • Provide a set of resources for women in engineering and systems engineering (see News and Events, and Resources buttons near bottom of page).
  • Support a mentor/mentee program in systems engineering (see http://incose.org/mentoring - must be logged into your INCOSE account) across INCOSE for all members (men and women).
  • Hold "Not for Women Only" focused EWLSE events around the world, including workshops, tutorials, and panels at INCOSE IS, INCOSE IW, APCOSE, CSER, SWE, NoSE, JOSE and other international, national, regional and local conferences and events.
  • Publish EWLSE related research through many different publications including INCOSE SE Handbook, SEBoK wiki, Future of SE, SE Vision, INCOSE Insight, Journal of Systems Engineering, and through other publishers.
  • Nominate one or more women leaders annually from around the world to participate in the INCOSE Technical Leadership Institute.
  • Sponsor women leaders in INCOSE leadership positions throughout the INCOSE community (chapters, working groups, Fellows, CAB, Academic Council, initiatives, and the INCOSE board, etc.).
  • Support the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Advisory team and Associate Director.

IW24: International Workshop Focus

Our objectives for IW24 working session are as follows:

  1. Hold a workshop session on Persistence in Systems Engineering Leadership - Not for Women Only.  [Saturday afternoon 3:30-5:30pm]
  2. Hold a business meeting to brainstorm and prioritize our leadership goals for 2024 and beyond. [Sunday morning 9:30 - 11 am]

Below is a notional list of goals for 2024 and beyond.   

EWLSE Leadership related:

  1. To update the current list of general leaders of EWLSE beyond the chairs - those participating in monthly / quarterly leadership meetings and actively leading or participating in at least one initiative.
  2. To increase the use of Yammer to provide information about EWLSE initiatives and activities to EWLSE members and anyone who has chosen to join the Empowering Women Yammer community which is open to any and all  INCOSE members to join.

Collaborate with other initiatives:

  1. To identify a role for DEI and EWLSE in FUSE.
  2. To identify a role for DEI and EWLSE in SEBoK wiki - the Guide to the SE Body of Knowledge.

Events Related:

  1. To establish and support an annual DEI Day.
  2. To formalize EWLSE’s role in, and establish events around the world for International Women’s Day, March 8th
  3. To hold EWLSE / DEI sessions at events held including: INCOSE IS and IW, AOSEC, Australia SETE/T&I, Japan JCOSE, Europe EUSEC/EMEA, NoSE, CSER, and SWE
  4. To participate in events regionally or virtually
  5. To hold networking event at INCOSE IW and IS
  6. To support INCOSE/EWLSE booth at SWE.

Research and Publication related:

  1. To continue to support DEI/EWLSE related research, papers, tutorials, panels, workshops, keynotes, presentations, etc, at events around the world.
  2. To define the next EWLSE / DEI related product.

Service Related:

  1. To support INCOSE mentoring - starting with matching, and moving beyond matching.
  2. To collaborate with MARCOM on a LinkedIn workbook guide to support the individual engineer and INCOSE through social media. Stueti, Honor, Renee.
  3. Propose and plan nominations for candidates for the next INCOSE TLI cohort.
  4. Propose and plan nominations for INCOSE recognition awards such as Pioneer, Fellows, Founder's, Outstanding Service Award, Working Group Award, Systems Engineering Influencer Award,  Certification Champion Award, Presidential Benefactor Award, Joint  ASEE SED /INCOSE Systems Engineering Educator  Award.

 

Planned Activities  - To Be Updated based on IW2024

  • Continue supporting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and the new Associate Director of DEI, Federica Robinson-Bryant.
  • Increase activity in EWLSE leadership opening up opportunities for increased involvement in EWLSE and related activities.
  • Increase use of Yammer to provide information about EWLSE initiatives and activities to EWLSE members and anyone who has chosen to join the Empowering Women Yammer community, open to any and all  INCOSE members to join.
  • Sponsor one or more  events at existing international, national, and regional planned INCOSE related conference events.
  • Nominate one or more candidates to next INCOSE TLI cohort.
  • Nominate one or more candidates for INCOSE recognition awards.
  • Raise awareness of EWLSE sponsored publications:

Planned Work Products - To Be Updated Based on IW2024

  • EWLSE plans to produce a presentation that can be used by anyone to discuss emerging trends in systems engineering leadership.  The plan is to make this a dynamic presentation that updates over time as the world changes!
  • EWLSE plans to organize a set of invited talks for March 8th, International Women’s Day. Stay Tuned!
  • EWLSE will continue to publish articles in the INCOSE Newsletter related to EWLSE related events, resources, and topics and also in support of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
  • EWLSE is having discussions on a possible next book titled: “Sustainable Solutions for a Better World: Emerging System Architectures”.  Send in your feedback to ewlse-leaders@incose.net.
  • EWLSE is open to supporting other products related to systems engineering leadership; diversity, equity, inclusion; gender related studies; and other applicable topics.
Find out more by visiting the EWLSE Viva Engage community today!

 

Viva Engage is INCOSE's social media platform for members. Use your INCOSE-issued Microsoft credential to login and join the conversation. INCOSE credentials are in the form of first.last@incose.net or first.last@incose.buzz.   

 
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