Today it was a privilege to welcome Yewande Akinola to talk about her highly accomplished Career in Engineering.

Yewande is an engineer, an innovator, a dreamer and speaker with tons of passion for the role of innovation, creativity and engineering in our world today. She spoke beautifully about the vast ranging opportunities working as a female engineer. Yewande believes that in 2016, there is a profound interconnectedness in our world and that we are all looking for the same solutions- peace, security, well-being and lives improved by good infrastructure. Engineering continues to sit right at the heart of our world’s solutions and there is a recognised role it has alongside sociology and economics that will help bring the progress and change our world needs to see.

Yewande holds a Bachelors degree in Engineering Design and Appropriate Technology from the University of Warwick and a Masters in Innovation and Design for Sustainability from Cranfield University. Yewande’s engineering experience and responsibilities include the design and management of sustainable water supply systems in the built environment. She has worked on projects in the U.K., Africa, the Middle East and in East Asia. Over the years, Yewande has demonstrated her passion for innovation within the engineering industry by taking on the challenge of steering award winning ideas from concept right through registration to manufacture. Her interests in developing countries and emerging markets have inspired her work with charities and non-government organisations towards the development of clean water and sanitation solutions for the world’s underdeveloped regions.

She combines her Engineering career with media work and has presented numerous engineering programmes for television in addition to contributing roles in Radio. Yewande spoke to girls about the fantastic designs and projects she has completed in her career and the opportunities she has had. She spoke about the subjects needed to become an engineer and emphasised that with a flair for creativity and an artistic passion you would go far in the field of engineering and would help to break the traditional stereotypes of engineers, becoming creative, inspiring female role models within the field engineering and design.

It was a fantastic talk from a highly successful and accomplished engineer, one we learnt a huge amount from, for which we are very grateful.