CIGRE India - Women in Engineering Forum

With reference to the letter of Mr. Rob Stephen (President CIGRE) regarding opportunities and efforts for promoting a platform in engineering domain. It also highlighted CIGRE's contribution through social and technical events for improvement and advancements in Power Transmission, Distribution and Generation technologies.

The key focus of the forum was to inspire women engineers to come forward, interact, develop skills and improve their participation in the engineering domain.

Ms. Khayakazi Doika, Global Chairperson for CIGRE Women in Engineering, presented a session on the initiatives CIGRE WIE is taking for encouraging women professionals to break the conventional barriers. Women have the required capabilities to lead and manage challenging roles in today's VUCA world. By being a member of CIGRE committee and part of its working group, it's an honour and opportunity to learn and grow knowledge in technological advancement by connecting global knowledge partners in Power System.

Ms. Seema Gupta CIGRE India WIE Chair and Ms. Rachna Garg – IEEE India WIE Vice Chair spoke about the women empowerment. The aim of STEM education and to spread awareness about the role of female engineers in the engineering domain in coming days

They also raise the concern about the challenges women's usually face in a technical field and provide solutions to deal with these problems.

The forum CIGRE WIE is continuously taking initiatives to grow women engineers and providing a platform to submit technical papers, attending workshops, technical discussions and getting mentored by experienced professionals.

It was at this forum that I was offered an opportunity to share my own story with the rest of the CIGRE community. My name is Mani Chopra, I believe in one thing today that I am an "electrical engineer and that is my super power"

I was born and brought up in Agra (The city of Taj Mahal), India. My parents have continuously motivated and encouraged me to do whatever attracted me the most in life in order to pursue my dreams. They have always told me there is no limit, the thought with which many women are deprived till today and I wish every girl would have similar parenthood in early days of life.

I feel gender should not be a parameter of skill/potential in any domain be it engineering/other. To convert this thought into action we need more women to come forward & represent their thoughts, stand up for the betterment of society through their knowledge and take actions in the areas which are still unexposed and considered to be male dominant and electrical engineering domain could be a good focus area.

Since childhood, I was fond about pursuing engineering, thus I pursued my higher education (Bachelors of Electrical and Electronics Engineering) and then moved to New Delhi after getting an employment opportunity in Transmission & Distribution sector in India's leading organization i.e. KEI Industries Ltd. I am currently working as Deputy Manager-EPC projects.

Though it was bit of struggle in initial days but having the employment in my interest area i.e. electrical engineering has helped to explore the professional side of my life and has helped me to build my confidence which resulted in having positive mind-set and use of my skills to contribute in Transmission & Distribution division of my organization i.e. KEI Industries Ltd.

I got ample opportunities under different roles to work in execution for diversified projects of power sector such as Overhead/Underground/Substations –AIS & GIS.

Over the years I understood technically how to analyse a complete city for its various load centre's (Distribution transformers) i.e. load balancing so that the electrical system designed for the city works effectively and efficiently for end user within minimum timeline and resources.

In country like ours which is growing and developing it is also very essential to design a system which should have less loss in distribution of electricity (theft and pilferage) e.g. use of insulated armoured cable for distribution network

Safety and quality are prime factors which help to run the electrical system smoothly, prevents accidents and injuries which can happen on the working sites due to negligence of important electrical parameters resulting in huge damages.

Our organization's Transmission & Distribution division is working on the concepts of The Theory of Constraints (TOC) which enables our organization in identifying the most important limiting factor (i.e. constraint) which prohibits organization in achieving the goal and then systematically improving the identified constraint until it is no longer the limiting factor.

We work on the logic and believes in:

• Inherent simplicity
• Inherent harmony
• People are good

This theory is helping us to identify the bottlenecks of our execution in achieving our project goal and also enables to eliminate the cause of distraction.

Hence, I feel women in engineering can contribute in society through her knowledge to make it a better place to live.

How you heard about CIGRE and this WIE event?

Our organization (KEI Industries Ltd.) is active member of CIGRE and representatives of our organization are regularly attending CIGRE conference held at Paris therefore my management is aware with all the latest development and advancement taking place. Mr. Lalit Sharma COO - KEI Industries Ltd. is chairperson of CIGRE India B-1 group.

I got the chance to attend my first CIGRE meeting which is at the launch of forum for "Women in Engineering" at New Delhi and got to know about this initiative taken for improving women contribution in domain of engineering.

What excited you about the future of WIE CIGRE?

At the outset let me begin with thanks to WIE CIGRE for touching upon the sensitive subject which is still less touched/unaddressed & requires lot of courage for any organization/forum to discuss about "women's presence in engineering domain" especially in the context of Indian education and employment system.

I got the opportunity to attend the meeting of CIGRE WIE and represent my organization, which helped me to mark my presence strongly between my colleagues and management.

Being an active member in CIGRE would enable me to increase not only my functional networking & knowledge but my confidence also.

I believe this forum would help many women engineers like me to come forward, increase technical competence as well as their professional network with global minds.

I visualize future of WIE CIGRE by the thought of Marie Curie, Radioactivity Researcher and Nobel Prize Record-Setter.

"We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."