INNOVATION Mar-Apr 2020

to 30 percent by the year 2030. Government policies that support women in the workforce, like increased access to affordable licensed child care, will also help accelerate this work. Let us not, however, let positive trends slacken the pace of our efforts. We have work to do. After all, women currently make up just 15 percent of the profession today and it’s taken us 100 years to get here.

of diversity have teams that are more creative, more productive, and offer a larger variety of experiences and skillsets that help bring in more business. We see women taking on visible leadership positions throughout the whole lifecycle of the profession— from grade school through to industry practice and retirement. When I served as president of the UBC Engineering Undergraduate Society in 2007, I was only the fourth woman to do so in its 90-year history at the time. Twelve new presidents have been elected since then, and of them seven were women. Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia itself has elected three women to serve as president in the last three elections in a row. The visibility of women in engineering and geoscience serves as an important example to young people of all genders, who learn to respect women in the field and come to imagine themselves in those roles someday in the future. When school children were asked to draw “a scientist” in the 1970s, less than one percent would depict them as women. Nowadays, roughly one third will draw them as women, rising to over half when exclusively looking at drawings created by girls. These are heartening trends for a profession committed to 30 by 30—a goal to raise the percentage of newly licensed female engineers

Bowinn Ma, P.Eng., has been the MLA for North Vancouver-Lonsdale since May 2017. She holds a degree in civil engineering, and is particularly active on the issues of housing, transportation, child care, and climate action. She serves as the Parliamentary Secretary for TransLink and also Chaired the Integrated North Shore Transportation Planning Project (INSTPP), which led to the region’s

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first ever rapid transit feasibility study and

continues to guide regional transportation planning for all levels of government on the North Shore.

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NOTARIUS OFFERS DIGITAL SEAL DISCOUNT TO REGISTRANTS In honour of our 100 th anniversary, Notarius, Engineers and Geoscientists BC’s approved provider of digital seals, is offering a $100 discount off the sign-up fee for all subscriptions completed between April 1 and June 30, 2020. This will reduce the one- time set up fee for registrants from $140 to $40, plus applicable taxes. Registrants who have signing and sealing

documents. The use of digital seal technology provides encryption that indicates the authenticity of a document. Once this encryption has been applied, the document is considered signed, sealed, and dated as per the information on the encryption. This allows documents to be transmitted electronically in a single step. For more information, visit the Notarius website at www.notarius.com/en/certifio/professionals/ engineers-geoscientists-bc .

permission under the Engineers and Geoscientists Act can also digitally sign and apply an electronic version of their seal with date to their professional

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