Engr Funmilola Ojelade - Creating a revolution of Women Engineers

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Recently, as part of the Trumpet Phenomenal People series, Trumpet Media Group's North West England Bureau Chief - Chantelle Tindall, conversed with the President of the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN) - Engr. (Mrs.) Funmilola Ojelade (FNSE). APWEN has been going for 37 years.

Trumpet: Who is Engr Mrs. Funmilola Ojelade?

Ojelade: Funlola Ojelade is a Chemical Engineer and practices the profession at the Nigerian Security Printing & Minting Plc, manufacturers of the Nigerian banknote (currency). She holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and is presently pursuing a Master’s degree in Business & Management at Harvard University. She is a detailed and result-oriented person. She’s a builder of people.

Congratulations on your recent conferment as the 16th President of the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN).

Your drive to educate and nurture more "Engineer Girls" as you call them, fascinates me. You talk about the Town & Gown initiative - how does this relate to Engineering?

The Town & Gown is essentially a mentoring programme targeted at creating a pool of ready-now female engineers fit for the industry. There’s a disconnect between what is taught in our universities and what the industry requires. Apart from the theory of it, there are skills that employers look for in prospective candidates. We want to use this programme to bring young engineers in contact with professionals from various industries, including the HR department of companies so that they can be aware of the skill set required and develop themselves accordingly. It will also help them to determine and focus on where they would want to build their career: what industry, what specialisation and so on. Young engineers in this context refers to those that are in the penultimate graduating year up to 3 years post graduation – that’s like a 5-year range.

APWEN is spearheading the need for our society to encourage more female Engineers. As the newly-elected President, how do you hope to achieve this in the two-year period your tenure runs for?

Over the years, we have developed programmes for every stage of the educational development of the girl-child. Initially, we focused more on Secondary School girls; organising programmes like career talk, competitions, industrial visit to engineering facilities and awarding scholarships. All in a bid to inspire them that engineering is a career for girls too.

In the last two years, we moved closer to the cradle. We introduced the “Invent It, Build It” programme for girls in upper primary school, ages 8 - 12 in addition to the existing programmes for Secondary Schools. This involves taking the girls through experiments that demonstrate engineering concepts after which we organise a competition to help us select those with engineering aptitude from among them. We award full scholarships from the primary school up to the university to those selected to study engineering. If they do not study engineering at the university level, the scholarship ceases. We have awarded 81 scholarships so far under this scheme to girls selected from the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.

Now, we will intensify the work on young engineers through the Town & Gown mentoring programme, in addition to the existing programmes for primary and secondary schools. We will also monitor the scholarship awardees of the “Invent It, Build It” programme to ensure they feed into the Secondary School programmes (because most of them are now in Secondary Schools) so that we can help them sustain the vision to become engineers.

So, you can see how it is that we are creating a revolution of girls who will take up engineering as a career.

Engineering involves mathematics and other science subjects which scares both boys and especially girls away. What plans are you putting in place to demystify the notion around the impossiblity to do well in those subjects?

I like that you recognise that math scares both boys and girls, and not just girls. The teaching method contributes to the “scare.” There are methods of impacting knowledge effectively, but such methods have to be taught. We know this in APWEN and that is why we have commenced a programme that involves a massive training of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teachers. The programme, called SheEngineer is funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK. We hope to get 500 teachers trained in effective STEM teaching techniques by the end of this year.

Until recently engineering was seen strictly as a man's job, but an organisation like APWEN is rightly placed to change this mindset. How successful has APWEN been in this respect?

APWEN, at inception, was a formed as a pressure group by six courageous women engineers, who observed that the men demonstrated reservation in allowing them work in the field but would rather retain them in the offices doing work that may not be engineering at all. But that has changed over the years. So, we can say that their efforts have paid off. Of course, we still have instances of such coming up once and again but we would always encourage our women to prove their worth through hard work. And as we continue to impact lives through our programmes, more women engineers are signing up and joining the train.

Your first official engagement as the new President was to Osun State where Governor Adegboyega Oyetola described you as a "national role model" How do you hope to live up to that expectation especially for Osun people and the nation in general?

We will continue to take our programmes to inspire the girl-child to study engineering round the six geo-political zones of the Federation and I will be leading the charge. We will be mentoring a lot of young female engineers; we will be training STEM teachers in virtually every State of the Federation. A number of these programmes will be held in Osun State. We will attract multinationals to the State of Osun; our programmes will bring commerce to the State.

Is Engineering as a course offered in both public and private Nigerian universities fit for purpose? If not, what are your suggestions for improvement?

The universities have their challenges, especially inadequate funding for research, poorly equipped laboratories and workshops, and of course, obsolete curriculum. Improvement can start from updating the curriculum. Use what is practiced in industries now to explain the engineering concepts to the students. The universities can also partner with industries who can sponsor some research and they can use those funds to equip their laboratories.

How do you see gender diversity in the work place, in the engineering sector and the boardroom?

Women continue to be under-represented in boardrooms and at all levels of political leadership. According to United Nations data, about 27% of managerial positions in the world were occupied by women in 2018; women representation in national parliaments is an average of 24.2% as of January 2019. The world is better when everyone has the opportunity to contribute their quota; optimal value is derived through diversity, just as an investment in a diverse portfolio yields better returns.

There is a perception that women committees and organisations end up in squabbles and fight for supremacy, and all other myths. APWEN has been going for 37 years. What is the secret to her success and what do you have planned to keep it progressing for the next President and generation?

I believe we’ve been able to wade through that common perception because professionalism is what binds us and our vision to increase the numerical strength of practicing female engineers drives us. This is substance. And for as long as we keep our eyes on that vision, we will keep progressing.

The world has produced great female engineers from diverse ethnicities including Mae C. Jemison. To introduce your "engineer girls" to the wider engineering world, do you have any project in place to engage with female engineers in the Diaspora to collaborate and work with you and your organisation?

We have been reaching out over the years and we continue to do that. However, this has been limited to attending conferences like the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) conference in the United States and the International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICSWES). This enables us to network with other female engineers from all over the world. Now, we will be working with the Engineering Forum of Nigerians, UK (EFN – UK) to engage with female engineers in Diaspora, starting with the UK.

How do you balance the role of wife, mother, engineer and recently APWEN President?

It’s been a challenging one. I delegate what can be delegated so that I can make room for what cannot be delegated.

APWEN has visited 7 States in Nigeria, are there plans to visit more or all the remaining 29 States during your tenure?

APWEN has visited 7 states under the Invent It, Build It programme. Other APWEN programmes have taken us to virtually every State in the country and we will continue to do this.

Does APWEN have any project for women who have not been fortunate to go into education for various reasons. Do these women have any role to play within the engineering community no matter how small?

Our vision is primarily to be the catalyst for advancement of women in the engineering profession towards national and global technological development and to increase the number of practicing female engineers. So, we tailor our programmes in that direction. Although we have organised programmes involving women in rural communities: we had a tree planting competition in Abuja some years back and engaged women in rural communities for the project. But there were educated women among them because the programme was for women.

What would your legacy for APWEN be after your tenure?

I’ll like to be remembered for the impact I make in building the capacity of young engineers to make them fit for the industry.

Your predecessor - Engr Felicia Agubata introduced the highly successful "Invent It, Build It" project sponsored by the NNPC, how do you hope to build on that?

Engr. Agubata did a fantastic job introducing that programme. Thanks to her vision, we will experience a revolution of girls opting for a career in engineering in the not too distant future. The SheEngineer that I spoke about earlier which we just started, was also incubated by her. It is a programme for Secondary School girls and builds on the “Invent It, Build It” programme.

So, we will continue with the “Invent It, Build It” programme and continue to generate engineer girls. Then, we will introduce our holiday technical boot camp programmes in the locations where we have the scholarship awardees of the Invent It, Build It programme. We will ensure that the awardees participate in these holiday events. Purpose is to keep our vision for them alive and ensure that they are continually inspired to study engineering.