WEPAN Newsletter September 2024
Begin Your Entrepreneurship Journey with the WEPAN Accelerator Program
Registration for the 2024 WEPAN Accelerator Program Days, taking place virtually October 8-11 and October 15, is now open! Encourage your students, faculty, colleagues, and anyone with an interest in entrepreneurship to register.
While all are welcome, the program is designed to holistically empower and support women and gender non-conforming innovators of color in STEM in their entrepreneurship and commercialization journeys. Applying an intersectional framework, we center people with multiple marginalized identities, disrupting damaging patterns of systemic oppression and social stratification that influence access to support, resources, and critical knowledge. Together in a community that promotes wellbeing, participants will set a vision, better understand their customers, develop a business model, connect with mentors, make a pitch, and more!
Building on the successes of past WEPAN Accelerator Program Days and our partnership with the American Association of Colleges & Universities' (AAC&U) Convergence program, we are excited to share that we are hosting this year's WEPAN Accelerator Program Days in partnership with AAC&U, AISES: Advancing Indigenous People in STEM, and Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity. This partnership is called The Empowered STEM Entrepreneurship Collective and is supported by a stage one prize from the Small Business Administration's Growth Accelerator Fund Competition.
Register at: https://registration.socio.events/e/wepanaccelerator2024
Events
Join Us in Person for the Women in Engineering Program Day!
On February 12 in San Antonio, TX, our annual Women in Engineering Program Day (WIEP) will convene practitioners and other stakeholders in the advancement of women in engineering to network, share resources, and discuss promising practices for supporting women in engineering.
Register at wepan.org/wiep. WEPAN members receive a $50 discount!
This year, WIEP, one of WEPAN’s signature events, will be taking place in tandem with CoNECD, the only conference dedicated to all the diverse groups that comprise the engineering and computing workforce. CoNECD registrants receive a $25 discount to WIEP.
WEPAN and NASEM Present: Supporting Caregivers in STEM Webinar
WEPAN is partnering with NASEM to discuss their report "Supporting Family Caregivers in STEMM," which describes the ways in which the labor and contributions of caregivers are often invisible and undervalued, with a specific focus on the academic STEMM ecosystem, including undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, resident physicians and other trainees, tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty, staff, and researchers.
This report reviews policies and practices that support caregivers, locally and nationally, and describes best practices in policy implementation and design.
The webinar will feature members of the report team along with STEMM professionals sharing their experiences as institutional leaders and caregivers.
Register at bit.ly/WEPANNASEM
News
WEPAN Wins Stage Two of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition
Today, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced WEPAN as a Stage Two winner for the 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC). WEPAN will receive a $100,000 cash prize for its work as a Growth Accelerator Partnership in supporting the launch, growth, and scale of STEM/R&D-focused small businesses across all three theme areas of the competition: National and Economic Security, Domestic Manufacturing and Production, and Sustainability and Biotechnology.
Over the last decade, SBA has awarded 566 in prizes totaling over $33 million to winners throughout the U.S. and U.S. territories. We are honored and thrilled to be part of this year’s Stage Two cohort, fostering a collaborative national support ecosystem for underrepresented and undercapitalized entrepreneurs.
Learn more!
• Check us GAFC 2024 Directory
• Meet the Stage Two winners and learn more about the competition by visiting the America’s Seed Fund website at https://www.americasseedfund.us/accelerators
WEPAN Awards Nominations Now Open
Creating change can be difficult, and the efforts of those who work to increase participation, retention, and success of women and other underrepresented groups in engineering can often go unnoticed and unappreciated.
The WEPAN Awards are designed to recognize and thank honorees for their contributions to engineering and equity work in academia, industry, and the wider community.
Please consider submitting a nomination if you know an individual, program, or organization worthy of recognition. Honorees demonstrate extraordinary service, significant achievement, model programs, and exemplary work environments that promote a culture of inclusion and the success of women in engineering.
Visit the WEPAN Awards page for a list of the available awards and selection criteria or to begin the nomination process. Nominations close October 28, 2024.
The Awards will be presented at the CoNECD conference in February 2025 in San Antonio, TX.
The Inventor's Patent Academy Paving the Way for Diversity in Invention
In a rapidly evolving world of innovation, recognizing the value of diverse perspectives is essential. Invent Together, in collaboration with Qualcomm, developed The Inventors Patent Academy (TIPA) – a free, online, patent education course designed to help historically underrepresented inventors understand and navigate the patenting process.
As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, we honor the contributions of Hispanic inventors who have shaped our world. Amid this celebration, it is important to address the diversity gaps in patenting and take steps toward closing them. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Report to Congress for the SUCCESS Act, Black and Hispanic Americans born in the U.S. remain underrepresented among innovators, with their participation lingering in the low-single digits. Additionally, Black and Hispanic American college graduates patent at half the rate of their white counterparts. Resources like TIPA serve as a beacon for change, pushing the boundaries for inclusive innovation and supporting initiatives aimed at closing the patent diversity gap.
TIPA consists of three, self-paced, modules exploring topics such as applying for a patent, navigating patent laws, and working with the USPTO. Developed by a team of inventors, patent-holders, entrepreneurs, and leaders in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, TIPA offers a unique and comprehensive perspective. Since its launch, over 2,000 students have enrolled, with the vast majority self-identifying as belonging to a historically underrepresented group.
Notably, the course has also been recognized as an exemplary IP education program by the USPTO in the National Strategy for Inclusive Innovation and a listed resource for its First-Time Filer Expedited Examination Program. In creating TIPA, the idea that everyone can invent and every inventor can learn to patent is at the core, making it an invaluable resource for those aspiring to navigate the patenting process.
Join the movement and shape the future! Register for TIPA and share the course with your network today! Once you complete the course, take our brief survey to share your experience and help enhance TIPA—your feedback is vital to creating a more inclusive innovation ecosystem.
Learn more at https://learn.inventtogether.org/r/qualcomm/
Free Resume Review in the WEPAN Career Center
The WEPAN Career Center offers a wealth of resources to help members achieve their career goals, including a FREE resume critique service, which offers a resume review by a resume-writing expert. While it's important that a resume is current and complete, it's also important that it stands out.
Within a few days of submitting a resume, an evaluation is sent outlining strengths, weaknesses, and suggestions to ensure best chances of landing an interview.
The process is simple:
- Click "Manage Resumes" under the Career Center Job Seekers tab
- Click "Upload Resume File"
- Choose the file to be uploaded
- Click "YES" next to "submit my resume for a free evaluation from a trusted resume expert at TopResume”
- On the pop-up window, click "Evaluate My Resume"
- Proceed with the upload by clicking "Upload Resume"
Stand out to employers with a polished resume and increase your chances of landing your dream job! There are currently over 500 employers on the WEPAN Career Center, and over 1300 job openings.
WEPAN Listserv
Do you have something to tell the WEPAN community? Remember that subscription to the WEPAN-L listserv is a member benefit! Share announcements, post publication opportunities, and collaborate with colleagues from different institutions and organizations on special projects.
To subscribe to the WEPAN-L listserv, visit: lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/wepan-l
Resources
Publications, reports, or communications relevant to women in engineering and STEM equity. All resources listed below are available in the ARC Network online resource library. If you need help accessing the library, please contact ARC Librarian Bethany Farmer at bethany@wepan.org.
- "‘Yes, I do belong’: the women who stay in engineering" by M. Ayre, J. Mills and J. Gill
"Despite considerable work to encourage girls and women to enter the profession, engi-neering continues to be heavily male dominated, a situation which has implications for quality and gender equity. The gender disparity is accentuated by women being more likely to leave the profession than men. A number of studies have investigated why women leave engineering. This study focuses on the converse question, 'What makes some women stay when many others leave?'"
ARC Network
Funded by the National Science Foundation ADVANCE Program, Awards HRD-2121468 and HRD-1740860, the ADVANCE Resource and Coordination (ARC) Network seeks to achieve gender equity for faculty in higher education science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. WEPAN serves as the backbone organization of the ARC Network.
Read the ARC Emerging Research Workshop Reports
Emerging Research Workshops help move scholarship and practice forward by producing cross-disciplinary and intersectional perspectives on emerging topics critical to equity for STEM faculty. Reports are available on the following topics:
- Identity-based Harassment
- Big Data and Algorithms
- Exclusionary STEM Language
- COVID-19 and Faculty Equity
Institutional WEPAN Membership
Want to encourage your institution to deepen its commitment to equity and excellence?
Consider becoming an Institutional Champion Member. At this membership level, institutions have unlimited member representatives who get to dive into critical diversity, equity, and inclusion issues through custom workshops. These members also get the opportunity to strengthen their inclusive leadership capacity as part of the Equity and Excellence Council. Additional Institutional Champion member benefits include:
- Professional Development
- Decades of resources in the WEPAN Knowledge Center
- Professional development webinars, including one featuring an invited speaker from your institution
- Free and discounted workshops, including one customized for your institution
- Free and discounted access to WEPAN’s Program Days
- Three annual convening registrations
- Communication & Networking
- WEPAN-L listserv
- Slack
- WEPAN member directory
- Social media spotlights of your institution
- Workforce
- Free and discounted job postings for your institution in WEPAN’s Career Center
For more information on how to become a WEPAN Institutional Member, please email membership@wepan.org.
WEPAN Slack Channel
Please join us on Slack to drive that connectivity across our membership during a critical time for connection. Join our Slack community today!
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