On Thursday the 16th of May, setec hosted the “Ingénieuses 2024” awards ceremony, which was closed by Aurore Bergé, Minister Delegate responsible for Equality between Women and Men.
This annual event, initiated in 2011 by the French Conference of Engineering School Directors (“Conférence des Directeurs des Ecoles Françaises d’Ingénieurs” – CDEFI), aims to tackle gender stereotypes, promote gender equality at school and in the workplace, and encourage young girls to choose science and technology courses and engineering careers. It takes the form of a national communication campaign launched on the 22nd of January and a competition, ending with a prize-giving ceremony at the setec group’s Central Seine auditorium on the 16th of May.
“setec wants to encourage more women to enter engineering professions. We have made a commitment with the industry as a whole to promote our professions irrespective of gender, in order to fight against the preconceived idea that these jobs are primarily reserved for men. We have made it a priority to increase the number of women in our management structures, and we have made gender equality an integral part of our HR policy,” says Biljana Kostic, HR Director at the setec group. “Hosting this event was therefore another opportunity for us to demonstrate our commitment once again.
Opening the ceremony, Valérie Bernhardt, Director of Structuring for the setec Group, stressed the importance of women taking their rightful place and daring to do so without self-censorship. She also pointed out that we must continue to take action to overcome societal biases, some of which are at times unconscious: “This must be done by also involving men, because gender equity is everyone’s project, it’s a matter of public interest.”
Emmanuel Duflos, President of the CDEFI, emphasised during the opening ceremony in front of secondary school students that “science has no gender, it is inclusive, and if you like science, engineering courses are accessible to all”.
Dominique Baillargeat, Director of 3iL Engineers and vice-president of the CDEFI, hosted the awards ceremony. Nearly 150 participants had the opportunity to discover the projects of various engineering schools and the portraits of the nominated women, presented through videos and presentations given that day.
A group of ten secondary school students from the Lycée Jacques Brel in La Courneuve also took part in the event.
This year, five school projects, two students and three women engineers received awards at the ceremony.
- Award for the most active school: IMT Mines Alès & IMT Mines Albi, for their “Exception’Elles” project;
- Award for student commitment : Polytech Annecy-Chambéry, for their “Women Engineers” project
- Award for the most original project: ISEP, for their project “Pacte FEMMES & IA – Pour une intelligence artificielle responsable et non-sexiste” (“Women & AI Pact – For a responsible and non-sexist artificial intelligence”) ;
- The Jury’s special award: ESTACA, for their project “Popularising science for children” ;
- Secondary school award: JUNIA, for its “Portraits of women scientists – Mission Chronos” project ;
- French student-engineer award, co-created with AUF Western Europe: Fannie Bichemin, student at ENSEA ;
- North Africa Student Engineer Award, co-created with the AUF North Africa: Fatima Zahrae Es-Saidi, student at ENSA Fès in Morocco ;
- Woman Engineer Award: Lena Harikiopoulos-Cordova, Centrale Nantes graduate, founder, president and consultant engineer at Consequally;
- Junior Woman Engineer Award: Mylène Tahar, graduate of Bordeaux INP – ENSEIRB-MATMECA, independent consultant in professional equality;
- Digital Woman Award, co-created this year with the Inria Foundation: Marine Berthier, student at ENSTA Paris..
Before closing the ceremony, Aurore Bergé, Minister Delegate responsible for Gender Equality and Anti-discrimination, gave a video message stressing the importance of acting from an early age to create non-stereotyped images.
The event ended with a speech by Michel Kahan, President of setec, who underlined the importance of accompanying female candidates towards positions of responsibility, and of always encouraging them to dare, in all areas.
To find out more and discover the portraits of students and women engineers : https://www.ingenieuses.fr/loperation-ingenieuses/
