Society of Women Engineers Week....Events in Minnesota!
Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Presents…..Engineering Week 2007!
This is a national organization that was founded in 1950. It is a non-profit organization whose mission is to “Stimulate women to achieve full potential in careers as engineers and leaders, expand the image of the engineering profession as a positive force in improving the quality of life, demonstrate the value of diversity.” www.swe.org This organization is one that I have heard about but never really become too familiar with.
The reason that I decided to post about them is because, just in case no one knows, National Engineers Week (Eweek) is coming up! It is February 18-24, so just in a couple of weeks. The SWE is a national organization, but this special week coming up, they have events spread out all through the country, many of which are in Minnesota.
Below is a list of events that the Minnesota section of SWE will be providing during the coming Eweek. This list came from the following web-site.
http://www.eweek.org/site/news/Eweek/2006_SWE_events.shtml
• The World of Engineering - Girl Scouts Patch Day Saturday, February 11th at Guidant Corporation in Arden Hills, MN from 8 AM to 1 PM
• What Makes a Bicycle? E-week Kick-off Event Saturday February 18th at Southdale Center in Edina, MN from 10 AM to 4 PM
• E-Week Fuel Cell Car Experiment Tuesday, February 21st at Fridley High School in Fridley, MN from 7:30 AM to Noon
• Connecting Educators to Engineers Event Wednesday, February 22nd at Lakeville, MN from 12:30 PM to 3 PM and Osceola, WI from 8 AM to Noon
• Sparks, Slime, and Speed – Experiments Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota Thursday February 23rd in St. Paul, MN from 3 PM to 7 PM
• CHEMFEST!! ITAS 2nd Annual Day at ‘The Works’, Saturday February 25th at The Works in Minneapolis, MN from 10 AM to 4 PM
All of these events are held near the Twin Cities area and are geared towards young girls interested in math, science and engineering. They are all part of this engineering week that is sponsored by the SWE. Though this is a national organization, there are many things that they do that reaches out to individual cities, this Eweek being an example of one.
Another example of SWE activity in the Twin Cities is the scholarships that they offer. They award thousands and thousands of scholarships every year. They get all of their scholarship money from donations from companies such as Dell Inc., General Motors Foundation, and IBM Corporation just to name a few.
The bottom line is this is a great organization. Despite them being a national organization they sponsor events, such as the upcoming Eweek, which are local to Minneapolis and are geared toward getting girls equal opportunities in the engineering field.