KIDSinfo is a project from SVIN (Swiss Association of Women Engineers). With this project, SVIN is hoping to convey the fascination and diversity of technical occupations, raise awareness of professional freedom of choice regardless of gender, and present successful female role models in technology.
The starting point for the development of this project in 2002 was the severe shortage of technicians, engineers and computer scientists in Switzerland as well as across Europe. At Klüber Lubrication, we have also become well aware of this shortage following our attempts to find new specialists and management for our technical positions.
These missing role models must be taught to children in the earliest possible stages of school education – also to establish a positive image of technicians and engineers in broader society. To help bring this about, the KIDSinfo project offers free presentations to primary schools throughout Switzerland (duration: three lessons). These are carried out by women in technical occupations or female students in various technical subjects (speakers). Thereby, the speaker talks about her professional career, her own work and other technical occupations, incorporates interactive modules (Lego tower construction, electrical quiz), discusses technology and occupations with the children, and makes herself available as a contact person for teachers.
The project is financed by sponsors, and thanks to the support of Klüber Lubrication, which will extend over the coming three years, it is able to give up to 4 presentations (duration: three lessons) per year.
To gain some insights into the initiative, Jessica Heider, Junior Marketing Manager at Klüber Lubrication AG (Switzerland), accompanied one of the speakers during her presentation to the fifth year of Heumatt School in Zurich on 25 January 2019.Over the course of the three hours, the lecturer – an electrical engineering student at ETH Zurich – gave the 17 schoolgirls and schoolboys a taste of the fascination of technical occupations and awakened their interest and curiosity in technology. The emphasis on inventions predominantly by female engineers and technicians (the dishwasher, the software for the Apollo 11 lunar module, among others) and the use of mixed working groups aim to highlight the presence and role of women in technical occupations as a matter of course.
At Klüber Lubrication, we are thrilled to be a part of this project and to contribute to diversity in technical professions.
