The Society of Women Engineers (SWE), held the annual “Invent It. Build It.” (IIBI) in October 2023. The event took place at the SWE annual conference in Los Angeles, California. One of the primary goals of SWE outreach activities is to expose girls to engineering and increase their awareness of what an engineer is. IIBI is an event that encourages girls to learn about engineering and pursue engineering careers. The program offers hands-on engineering experiences for girls while parents and educators learn about engineering careers, scholarships, and resources. Through events like IIBI, SWE aims to help increase girls’ confidence in engineering-related skills.
To address the current priorities of STEM programming, IIBI’s half-day framework focuses on the engineering design process through hands-on STEM activities.
In 2023, IIBI participants included 117 students ages 10-13, 195 students ages 14-18, and 102 parents/guardians and educators.
In an effort to assess IIBI’s impact, SWE measures students’ level of confidence in foundational engineering skills, the influence of role models on attendees’ confidence, and participant confidence in identifying what engineers do.
Out of 157 amount of survey respondents, here are the results:
