The reality is that women make up roughly 50 percent of the population. Consequently they use 50 percent of products that are manufactured and put on the market each year.

The question is, if women are such important contributors to the economy with massive expendable income why do men design almost all products used by women? This is a problem many engineering schools and companies are now recognizing and trying to address. Women are simply in demand.

We recently spoke with Adel Sedra, dean of engineering at Waterloo University, who shared his thoughts on this realization within the industry.

When it comes to promoting diversity the industry itself is progressing faster than academia. For Sedra the lack of female representation starts in the educational institutions and filters throughout. “Traditionally the number of women who went into engineering was small and the number of those who graduated from engineering who decided to pursue graduate studies was even smaller. Beyond that the number of women with PhDs in engineering who decided to pursue an academic career is even smaller. So as a result we have a pool of qualified candidates that is very small.”

But according to Sedra the problem stems much earlier at the high school level. “Unfortunately there is not enough encouragement. The decisions and orientation are formed very early on so you really have to interest young girls in careers in science and engineering. I don’t think the high schools are doing a sufficiently good job of that. I believe is starts in high school and even lower,” he says.

Pair this lack of encouragement with the fact that engineering is commonly represented as a male dominated industry and it is inevitable that young girls will find themselves opting for another career alternative.

Industry and academia are not sitting back on this lack of female representation. Throughout his 20 years Sedra has witnessed schools work hard to create a more welcoming environment for women on all levels.

“You have to infuse the culture with sensitivity to gender issues. It’s not enough to say we are welcoming women. You have to really practice that. Engineering schools have been reaching out to the high schools. The University of Waterloo makes presentations at the schools aimed at attracting women. We open our doors, laboratories and classrooms to young girls once a year to invite them to see what it’s like to be an engineering student. So there have been initiatives aimed at increasing the number of women,” Sedra explains.

Despite these initiatives practiced by many academic institutions throughout Canada, Sedra recognizes the number of female high school graduates opting to study engineering has fallen within the last two years. As a result institutions are collecting data in order to better understand the reasons for this shift. “There is sensitivity to these issues. The Deans of Engineering in Canada have periodic meetings and we share views and best practices in this regard. I think most schools have something going on to increase the representation.”

Other organizations involved with increasing female representation include The Canadian Council of Professional Engineers and Professional Engineers Ontario.

Sedra makes a straight statistical argument without even addressing gender issues. By taking so many young men and only so many fewer of young women, it is inevitable some talent pool is being left behind. When you are in the business of designing devices, products and processes for people, the more diverse a group the better the solution you are going to achieve. “In designing cars for instance, there are some things in the design of a car that women are much more sensitive to. There are probably a whole bunch of products in which a female perspective will benefit,” says Sedra. “You certainly improve the quality of the workforce because if you want better engineers you should not ignore half of the population. To get the better quality workforce you should try to include all sectors of society and certainly women are half of the population,” he adds.

And companies are taking this into account big time. In the business to succeed and make money they want to pick the best engineers to design their products. To achieve this they cannot be picking the best among half of the population. Concludes Sedra, “We want out reach out and find some terrific women engineers. If you limit yourself to only men you are losing out.”

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