Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) Camp for Girls, University of Wollongong 2018

TfNSW is a gold sponsor of the 2018 University of Wollongong (UOW) STEM Camp for girls. This event provides girls with the opportunity to explore career pathways in science, technology, engineering, and maths. This year, girls were invited to participate in a range of activities, including a visit to BlueScope Steel, a tour of UOW’s Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC), and a trip to a coal services station, and workshops on artificial muscles, coding, and the use of drones in environmental science.

Transport for NSW had the opportunity to showcase and promote our new semi-autonomous vehicle: Safety1. This included a presentation by Vanessa Vecovski from the Centre for Road Safety presented, on her cutting edge work with connected and automated vehicles. Vanessa has worked in road safety technology for almost a decade, and is the Project Manager for the CITI Project, the world’s largest on-road trial of connected heavy vehicles. Vanessa shared her extensive knowledge about the role of technology in reducing deaths and injuries across the NSW road network. She also highlighted the importance of STEM in the development of road safety measures.

Transport for NSW’s gold sponsorship of the STEM Camp for Girls 2018 also provided the opportunity to showcase potential career paths across the Transport cluster in the fields of Science Technology Engineering and Maths. This included a presentation by Ben Lowe, Community Engagement Officer, about TfNSW’s Entry Level Talent Programs (ELTP). Two group leaders from the ELTP - Civil Engineer Toni Breeze and Electrical Engineer Marie Castro - shared their first-hand experience of working in the Transport cluster, and another ELTP Civil Engineer - Sangavi Santhikumar - participated in a panel discussion about our ELTP programs and STEM career pathways.

Although 75 percent of the fastest growing occupations require STEM skills, Australian employers report difficulties recruiting STEM-qualified graduates and staff. Women make up over half of our population, yet only 28 percent of the employed STEM-qualified Australian workforce are female, with 14 percent in Engineering and related technologies, and 25 per cent in Information and Communications Technology. The ability to fully realise Australia’s productivity potential and innovative capability into the future will depend on ensuring a sustainable STEM skills pipeline and effectively attracting, developing and retaining women in the STEM workforce.

Our ELTP program at TfNSW currently has a 41.4% female representation, with 30.8% aligned to engineering careers. Attending interstate career fairs will help us to reach a target of 50% women in the field of engineering across the Transport cluster. A key focus of the ELTP strategy is to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and progress women into underrepresented roles across the Cluster, particularly in the field of engineering, and also assist in developing our future female leaders.

The UOW STEM Camp for Girls 2018 was made possible by the generous support from UOW STEM sponsors, including Transport for NSW, BlueScope, Cardno, Transgrid, Adelaide Brighton, Evanscorp, MI Engineers, iAccelerate, SBRC, Coal Services, Devika, Me3D, and ARC Centre for Electromaterials Science.