Jersey student inspires girls to become engineers

Thursday 04 February 2016

A competition organised by a Jersey student has inspired girls around the world to think about pursuing a career in engineering.

Jersey College for Girls head girl, Rachel Hayden, launched the Building the Future, Shaping our World competition in 2015. Entries to the global competition came from as far away as India and Nepal, and the winning team was a group of 11-18 years olds from St Anne’s Catholic School in Southampton.

"I set up the competition because many women across the globe don’t realise that a career in engineering exists or is accessible for them," said Miss Hayden.

"Only six per cent of the engineering workforce in the UK is female, which is a shockingly low number. This competition has provided these girls with an insight into how exciting a career in engineering could be, and hopefully will inspire some of them to pursue a career in this diverse, expanding and creative field."

The Building the Future, Shaping our World competition was started through the International Women’s Institute and was sponsored by corporate, private client and funds company Hawksford. Entrants were asked to design a sporting venue to be located on a derelict or brownfield site in their local area. The teams submitted PowerPoint presentations with no more than 10 slides, and were asked to consider factors such as benefits to the community, sustainability, design, services and use of land.

"The detail of the design submitted by Team Cudos was very impressive and the judges were particularly captivated by their consideration of both sustainability and services and land. The girls had clearly done a lot of research, which supported their design and made them worthy winners of the competition.

"I would like to thank all of the judges for giving up their time to consider the entries, and in particular to Hawksford for sponsoring the global half of the competition. Without their support we wouldn’t have been able to achieve all this," added Miss Hayden.

Each of the four criteria were marked out of five points by an expert judging panel. The panel consisted of Jersey’s chief minister, Ian Gorst, engineering professor at Southampton University, Dr Jon Hare, Civil Engineer at Arup, Becky Slater, Hawksford CEO, Maxine Rawlins, Chief Officer of Jersey Transport and Technical Services, John Rogers, and Le Masurier CEO, Brian McCarthy.

Hawksford’s Marketing Manager, Cherith Fothergill, commented, "On behalf of Hawksford, I am delighted that we were able to support Building the Future, Shaping our World. We strongly believe that women should be encouraged to explore all employment options, and that equal opportunities should be given to women throughout their careers. Rachel has done a fantastic job bringing this important issue to light; it was an honour to witness what will hopefully be the start of some very exciting careers in science and engineering."