Inspiring the Next Gen of Female Leaders - Hackathon
The number of women in the field of architecture, engineering and construction are still very much lagging behind their male counter parts. As part of the initiatives to increase awareness and to inspire future female leaders to take action, Equity by Design or otherwise known as EQxD was created in California. It's grassroot efforts includes a Hackathon session which has been replicated throughout the nation, including within Honolulu on June 22.
In the United States, women represent less than 50% of the students graduating from accredited design programs in the US. The number of women who are AIA members, licensed architects and other engineering and construction industry leaders varies between 15% to 18% of the total. While the exact percentages is in constant flux, the challenge of losing the large pool of architectural, engineering, and construction industry talent remains the constant.
The Hackathon concept is to gather a group of motivated individuals to brainstorm ideas and solutions to a single problem that women in the AEC community have encountered over the years. Sessions like these are the foundations with which solutions can be created to increase young girls access into the field of architecture, engineering or construction. Each group contained four to six individuals from different sectors of the AEC community, they were timed to discuss specific topics that affected women in construction and design, and then the results were combined to come up with specific action items for the group to initiate. Stay tuned for the next session....
