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IEEE Japan Council Women in Engineering Affinity Group

2006 Events

Lecture by Dr. Sandra Zilles

In the evening of 20 Feb. 2006, a lecture by Dr. Sandra Zilles from DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) was held at the Collaboration Room, Tokyo Institute of Technology, as the fourth public lecture of WIE Japan. As a computer scientist, she focused her topic on women in computer science in Germany. Based on the hard data, she gave an overview of the situation of woman in computer science in German firstly, and then discussed on why there is few women in computer science based on her original analysis and experiences. Even it was a heavy rainy day, almost packed audience participated the lecture and questionnaire survey shows many audience were very interested in her analysis and got a lot of hint from her talk. The lecture was co-sponsored by the IEICE Committee for Promoting Equal Participation of Men and Women, and IEEE Student Branch at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
(Reported by Xiaowei Kan and Akinori Nishihara)
Prof. Kuroda introduces Dr. Zilles Audience Dr. Zilles
Presentation Material by Dr. Zilles
We can lend a CD-ROM of her presentation video.

Women in Robotics, Human Science and Society

Read a report of Panel Discussion held on March 8 (in Japanese).

Lecture by Dr. Lemonia Ragia

In the evening of Thursday, March 16, 2006, there was a lecture meeting at the Center for the Advancement of Working Women in Tokyo. The speaker was Dr. Lemonia Ragia, Informatik V (Information Systems), RWTH Aachen, Germany, and the title of her talk was "Handicaps to success for women engineers".
Dr. Lemonia Ragia
Her presentation material is available here.

Special Lecture and Party to celebrate the First Anniversary of WIE Japan

The lecture meeting was held on 22 July 2006 in the lecture hall of Ookayama Campus, Tokyo Institute of Technology. Prof. Miki Haseyama and Prof. Yong-Jin Park gave us their lectures.

Prof. Miki Haseyama (Hokkaido University, IEEE Region 10 WIE Coordinator)

Title: How to enjoy being a woman researcher in Engineering

The first half of the talk was on the current state of gender equality in the field of science and technology based on the data such as EPMEWSE - Japan Inter-Society Liaison Association Committee for Promoting Equal Participation of Men and Women in Science and Engineering. The last half of the talk was on her carrier development and her research named "Friendly model". Her talk was full of humor and encouragement.
Prof. Haseyama Audiene

Prof. Yong-Jin Park (Hanyang University, IEEE Region 10 Conference Coordinator)

Title: Recent IT Situation in Korea

This talk covered the recent IT industries and Internet situation in Korea. Firstly, rapid growth of electric Industry, mobile service providers, broadband services was shown with statistical data. Then, he described the secret of Samsung Group realized by achievement-oriented system and human resource development. He also outlined the dramatic change of social system caused by ICT, such as e-government, game industry, e-politics, and e-banking.
The rapid growth of Korea gives us tips for increasing the share of women in engineering by competitive power.
Prof. Park

There were about 30 participants to the party and their background was diverse including artificial intelligence, software engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, medical engineering, mechanical engineering, foreign language and sociology. Prof. Hideki Hashimoto, the IEEE Japan Council Treasurer congratulated the first anniversary of this IEEE Japan Council WIE Affinity Group, and all the participants briefly introduced themselves.

Both the lectures and the party were so successful. We would like to thank all the speakers and participants. We are looking forward to meeting you in the future. (reported by Mihoko Otake)

This report and discussion after the lectures are summerized in Japanese.

WIE Lecture and Networking: Exchange of South Eastern Asia and Japan

Dr. Guevara gave a speech Party after the lecture
The lecture was held at Tokyo University of Sciences, Kagurazaka Campus on November 11, 2006. Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, Dean of Engineering, University of Philippines lectured her research work and activities of female researchers in the Philippines.

Title: Women Engineers as Academic Leaders

Read report in Japanese.

Prof. Guevara graduated from the University of the Philippines for her BS and MS Electrical Engineering degrees in 1985 and 1990 respectively, and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1997. She did post-doctoral studies in speech signal processing at the Tokyo Inst. of Technology and as the first Banatao Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.
After graduation in 1985, she joined the faculty of the Dept. of Electrical Engineering and now holds a Professor position. She was the Chairman of the EEE Dept. from 1997 - 2003
In July 2004, she became the youngest and first woman Dean of the College of Engineering, and concurrent Executive Director of the National Engineering Center.
Her research interests are speech, audio, image and music signal processing. She is a member of professional societies like the National Research Council of the Philippines, the Institute of Integrated Electrical Engineers and IEEE.
In the lecture, first, she mentioned the proportion of female student and female faculty of universities in the Philippines. By international standards, the rate of both female students and female faculty are very high in the Philippines. Especially, in industrial engineering, chemical engineering, and material engineering, female students outnumber male students. Even in mechanical engineering, about 20 % of students are female. When Prof. Guevara was a student, there are only a few female students per grade. In the past two decades, the rate of female students increased.
Next, Prof. Guevara's own personal history was shown. From her childhood, she likes music. Especially, she has great practice in piano. The talent aids in charity concert to collect donations for constructing new building in the university.
About research, she told that the selection of research theme is important. In the beginning, her specialty was electrical power engineering. Then, she changed her research area to signal processing in order to respond to the demonds of the modern society. Her research interests are speech, audio, image and music signal processing.
Lastly, she talked about leadership. After she became the dean, she modernized university system. For example, she built new university buildings, introduced remote lecture with concerted efforts of the University of California at Berkeley. She collected donations for university from governments and a number of companies and equipped with new facilities. Students are given practical education that they become adaptable fighting potential in companies.

Read her presentation material.

Q and A

  1. : How do you explain significant number of women in both the student population and in the faculty in the Philippines, as compared to significantly lower numbers in other countries?
  1. :
    1. Don't look at gender during the selection process - but selection process includes both high school grades and an entrance exam. Women tend to do worse on the entrance exam, but tend to have better high school grades, so they still enter university in significant numbers.
    2. No special government programs such as affirmative action or preferential hiring.
    3. Matriarchal society - women are respected as the head of the family and the chief manager and decision maker.
    4. Women don't face the same negative stereotypes - for example, as a child, she never heard that math is more difficult for girls.
  1. : How did you invite donations for university?
  1. : We described industry that if students get good education at universities, students become adaptable fighting potential for companies. In negotiations, logical thinking is important.
  1. : In Japan, women tend to give up her job on marriage or having a child. How about in the Philippines?
  1. : Women don't face the same family and childcare responsibilities and stereotypes - having a nanny (or several) is seen as acceptable and affordable for a working woman, so that women don't have to choose the career vs. family.
Reported by Mihoko Otake, Translated by Mariko Aoki