EWeek 2008 At-a-Glance

Engineers Week 2008 aims to offer a broad program of outreach and education efforts to encourage more women and other diverse groups to consider engineering careers. EWeek 2008, scheduled for Feb. 17 to Feb. 23 in Washington, D.C., is co-chaired by IBM and the Chinese Institute of Engineers-USA.

Throughout the next months, CSE will bring its readers information on Engineers Week 2008 through print and online resources at www.csemag.com. As an overall view, EWeek 2008 aims for diversity in communities representing women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, people with disabilities and gay individuals.

One such program is the eighth annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, which helps young women understand the importance of the work that engineers perform, and shows these young women that the profession wants them and needs them. This program is scheduled to take place Feb. 21. More information can be found at http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/girlsday.shtml.

Another program tackling aspiring engineers is the Future City competition. Each year, more than 30,000 middle school students at more than 1,100 schools nationwide use hands-on applications and teamwork to create computer and tabletop scale models of their visions of the cities of tomorrow. Under the guidance of teachers and volunteer engineer mentors, students present their designs to engineer judges at one of 40 regional competitions in January. First place regional teams win a trip to Washington, D.C., for the finals. To learn more about becoming a mentor in this program, visit http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/2007_FC_mentor_benefits.shtml.

IBM, a long-time supporter of Engineers Week, previously served as lead corporate sponsor in 1992 and 2001. The company estimates that last year 1,700 women employees, an increase of 6% from 2004, and 1,000 underrepresented minority employees, an 18% increase, worked with more than 100,000 young women and 66,000 underrepresented minority students, through visits to schools, events at IBM sites and other community activities. Overall, the number of IBM volunteers increased by 8%.

For its part, the Chinese Institute of Engineers-USA represents Asian-American professionals in corporations, academia and public services with more than 10,000 members in six area chapters across the country. One of its outstanding efforts is the annual presentation of the Asian American Engineer of the Year Awards, launched in 2002, the same year the institute became an Engineers Week supporter. This marks the first time that CIE-USA, founded in 1917, will co-chair the event.