Founded by The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) in 1951, National Engineers Week is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing the understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers. Celebrated annually every February, it is a time to celebrate engineering and engage the next generation of innovators.
National Engineers Week is observed by engineering, education, cultural societies, corporations, and government agencies. Its purpose is to recognize the contributions to society that engineers make and to highlight the value of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
As an engineering firm, Simplexity is honored to celebrate National Engineers Week and to support the engineering community and STEM initiatives not only during this joyous week, but all year long as sponsors, volunteers, speakers, and mentors for various organizations.
Supporting the Future
How do we continue to grow and innovate as a company and a society? Supporting the engineering community to inspire future engineers is vital. You don’t need to be an engineer to play a role in supporting our innovators. There are many organizations and student groups that need support in many forms.
We would like to take a moment to highlight some of the amazing groups and organizations we support:
Oregon MESA
Every year, Oregon MESA serves more than 600 middle and high school students historically underrepresented in STEM fields with the skills, knowledge, and opportunities to develop their talents, explore technology-based careers, enter college, and compete successfully in the workforce. These students are defined as underrepresented students of color, girls and non-binary students, impoverished populations, and first-generation college students. MESA offers programs in the Portland metro area and Salem, Oregon.
Simplexity will be presenting the next MESA Virtual Career Visit on March 3rd, 2021.
You can sign up to watch here if you are interested in participating!
California MESA
California MESA is a college and career prep engine that propels student diversity and achievement in STEM fields. As a grassroots effort that began with 25 students at Oakland Technical High School in 1970, it has flourished into an award-winning program that serves almost 25,000 middle school, high school, community college, and university students throughout California each year. MESA’s long history with industry and its vast network of alumni are key components to success.
Simplexity will be participating in a special event on August 20, 2021. Stay tuned for additional updates.
Graduate Women of Engineering (GWE)
Graduate Women of Engineering is a GradSWE organization made up of graduate engineering students from all engineering disciplines at the University of California, Berkeley. Their primary purpose is to support all graduate engineering women (in body, spirit or identity — past, present, and future) in all their engineering endeavors.
Simplexity CEO, Dorota Shortell was happy to participate in a career panel with an impressive group of fellow engineering and STEM professionals in December 2020. Students were able to ask successful women from academia, industry, government, and non-traditional career paths about their professions, what challenges they faced, and how they have overcome those challenges.
You can watch the entire panel to catch some of the incredible advice given by this impressive group of women leading STEM forward.
Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
For more than six decades, SWE has given women engineers a unique place and voice within the engineering industry. Their organization is centered around a passion for their members’ success and continues to evolve with the challenges and opportunities reflected in today’s exciting engineering and technology specialties. A champion of women engineers, the Society of Women Engineers is the world’s largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology.
Simplexity CEO, Dorota Shortell (a SWE life member and keynote speaker), and some of our employees are proud to be a part of the organization, serving as members and mentors.
You can watch the entire keynote and learn how to unlock your potential as Dorota demystifies what it takes to be a CEO. Dorota shares stories, challenges, and lessons learned along the way of growing a successful engineering firm, pointing out that engineers can hone their skills to become successful leaders.
(Don’t miss the stage dive at minute 46!)Green.Griffins; 10092
Green.Griffins;10092 is an FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) team created in 2015 based in San Diego, California. The community team is hosted by Francis Parker School where members come from all different schools, but a majority are homeschooled. The team and mentors founded a non-profit organization called R&D Robotics Education with the intent of providing robotics programs to anyone from any school. They aspire to raise awareness for FIRST, interest students in STEM, work alongside STEM professionals, and share their knowledge among the robotics community.
Simplexity is a proud sponsor and mentor to the robotics team and while the team is on hold for now due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we look forward to the team resuming when its safe to do so.
Taken during the last season prior to Covid-19
Looking Ahead After National Engineers Week
As Simplexity continues to grow, we look forward to continuing our support of engineering and STEM initiatives. It is a passion that runs deep in our organization much like our company culture. We are here to promote the innovative world of engineering and support the mission of many incredible organizations who support talented engineers, inevitably making the world a brighter place.
Check out the organizations above to learn more and to see how you can help diversify the world of future engineers and STEM professionals.
Keep innovating!
Future Simplexity engineer in training
Software: Design Complete
Hardware: Pre-production units for design verification
MFG. Readiness: CM schedule and budget, Unit build tracking