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kouris in the nuclear industry, aside Marie Kouris included Arane Juliet Kouris, obviously the daughter of Marie Kouris and she discovered the concept of artificial or induced radioactivity.
Lesse Meitner, she developed innovative study of radioactivity and nuclear energy.
Marie Gopet Meia and she won a Nobel Prize for her work on the shell model of the nuclear structure.
Cheon Shon Wu, she developed a process to separate fissionable uranium-235 from uranium-238, which is a key step in accumulating uranium fuel for atomic bomb.
Even though the pioneering work of Marie Kouris as well as the contributions of these notable women mentioned above, gave best to nuclear science and technology, the nuclear industry has been established that women make up fewer than a quarter of the workforce in the nuclear industry worldwide, affecting not only diversity but also competitiveness.
For some years, women in nuclear have been advocating for the industry's gender balance, boosting women's participation in leadership and education of the public concerning nuclear.
These concerns have also been raised by some notable leaders or personalities in the nuclear industry regarding gender disparity and they include one, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Mr. Rafale Mariano Grossi, he remarked,
Having worked in the nuclear industry for many years, I was frequently astonished by the excellent caliber of women working in this profession, but I was disturbed to discover them in such limited numbers.
This shows that the nuclear industry is missing out on the world of talent and experience, which is unacceptable, given that nuclear is contributing to global concerns such as health, food security and access to clean energy and clean water.
Women are so far being adequately represented in the nuclear field and this is not good.
Two, the Director General of World Nuclear Association, Miss Agneta Rizin said, Women are essential to the strong development of the global nuclear sector.
To be the most competitive, a business needs to have the best people working for it, the nuclear industry should have programs to attract and recruit women, otherwise they'll be missing out on competitive advantage their talent could bring.
When the workforce better reflects the diversity of society, including the representation of women, it also helps to build society's trust in nuclear technologies.
The third person who remarks on the gender disparities is the Executive Director of Operations and Development at the Wolfner-Newt Nuclear Power Station in the UK, Miss Gwen Perry Jones, and she said,
Despite the fact that there are many smart and highly skilled women working in the nuclear industry, we are still underrepresented.
There is still work to be done.
Workplace diversity benefits us all and I completely support initiatives that encourage women to enter the profession and show them how to advance to high position.
The fourth one, and certainly not the last, this was made by the former president of women in nuclear and former manager of nuclear facilities and laboratories in Germany, Miss Gabrielle Voigt, and she said,
While there is a growing proportion of women in senior positions, technical ones in every branch of nuclear science and technology, women are still underrepresented.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, it is heartwarming to note that much progress in nuclear and many groundbreaking discoveries are credited to the contributions of women scientists.
However, to date, women remain underrepresented in many areas of science, including nuclear security.
So, it's something being done to change the status quo, the answer is yes, and I will take you through some efforts being done by the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as other organizations.
International Atomic Energy Agency is the world's center for cooperation in the nuclear field and depends upon stable pool of qualified technical professionals to fulfill its mission.
The agency is working hard to raise the percentage of women in all employment categories under the general scheme, gather for more women in nuclear, how to close the gender gap.
The agency has initiated the following. The first is the fellowship programs for females.
As we all probably may know, the International Atomic Energy Agency has since time in memorial supported many people through fellowship programs, scientific visits, training and so on and so forth.
And the fellowship programs affect or the benefit both men and women.
But recently, in a very recent time, the agency has launched a new fellowship program after Maria Sledowska-Puri to increase the number of women working in nuclear science and technology.
The MSc fellowship program is to financially support young women up to 100 female graduate students per year to help close a persistent gap in the nuclear field.
Under the MSc fellowship program, the IAE will provide scholarships for up to two years for women pursuing graduate degree in nuclear science and technology.
The IAE will also be offering the IAE to supplement the expert knowledge gain during their studies.
The second initiative is the celebration of International Day.
We focus on nuclear.
So in the quest to showcase inspiring stories of women in nuclear, the IAE hosts or celebrates International Women's Day and in 2019, the program was dubbed inspiring stories of women in nuclear field.
A dynamic event to inspire the audience in our individual and collective efforts for gender equality.
And the event featured short stories by accomplished women in nuclear, each with a unique story to tell.
The third is becoming a voice for gender.
So under the general theme, together for more women in nuclear, the IAE is hoping to become a global voice promoting gender parity and even broader gender equality in the nuclear sector.
Through the concrete, through concerted efforts that have been rolled out, and the agency continues to lead the discussion on gender equality in nuclear matters, ensuring that both men and women can equally contribute and benefit from peaceful uses of nuclear.
Discussion panels and webinars organized by women and for women.
So IAE has in recent times organized panel discussions and webinars to bring visibility to women.
And one such program was the first IAE webinar to encourage women for careers in accelerator science and technology.
At the program, the panelists remarked, the low representation of women working with particular accelerators, weakening the diversity and competitiveness of our field.
Therefore, we need to do more outreach to increase our numbers.
Parity in leadership. And this is another initiative that the International Atomic Energy Agency is pushing for.
It has been noted that women do not have the same time to invest in their careers to be considered for promotion.
The same being that in many societies and family arrangements, family care is still the primary responsibility of women.
Making childcare something that disproportionately affects women and creates barriers to their participation in the former labour market, the nuclear sector included.
To achieve this and sustain gender parity, the agency promotes an enabling environment in which everyone feels welcome and can thrive regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities or any other characteristics.
Six initiative introduction of nuclear and isotopic science into the curricula of high schools or secondary schools.
This is under the concept catch them young and keep them forever.
Building the next generation of leaders in nuclear science is something the agency is working on.
An example is what the agency is doing to support teachers in 17 countries across Asia and Pacific with the early introduction of nuclear science into education for the students including girls to equip them pursue advanced studies in nuclear science.
This initiative aims to reach at least one million students between 12 and 18 within a short time.
School outreach for basic and tertiary institutions inspiring tomorrow's science today.
And that is one of the initiatives of the IE and they have presented a new nuclear science and technology educational resource material for secondary schools.
Tomorrow's scientists are today's students and how can we inspire the next generation to choose science as a career.
That is the question a new educational resource package developed by the agency in partnership with educational and communication aspects from around the globe aims to answer.
The goal of the project is to make nuclear science more interesting, attractive to students and to encourage young people to enter the field of nst.
There are several initiatives of the IE and if we can go to the website of the agency we can find them.
There are too many to list them.
So I will shift to efforts being done or being made by other organizations to ensure achievement of gender parity.
And the first one is United Nations.
United Nations under the nuclear arms control expert is pushing to bring gender equality to their work.
UN experts are hoping for a future where women and men have equal representation.
This view was expressed during the 10th Treaty on Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Integrating Gender Perspectives into NPT review process.
The conference highlighted the importance of advancing gender equality in work related to this armament in non-proliferation and in raising greater awareness about the way in which nuclear weapons affect men and women differently.
Another international organization doing something about the gender disparity is International Gender Champions.
The International Gender Champions IGC is a leadership network.
It's an international network with over 284 champions and 268.
The IGC brings together decision makers to bring down gender barriers and they advocate that 50% of the world population were on the same visibility as the other 50%.
What they are saying is that 50% obviously the men are already being known.
They are just moving on in terms of percentages in workforce.
But the other 50, the women are lagging behind.
The International Gender Champions are advocating for equality in the workforce.
The Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Antonio Guterres and the Director General of the IAEA are both members and there are several notable personalities being part of the International Gender Champions.
They are a strong force to help change the status quo regarding gender disparity in nuclear.
Aside from the efforts of the IAEA and the international organization, are there efforts being done by ourselves that is women for ourselves.
I will spend the rest of the time to look at the efforts being done by women themselves that is women ourselves because I am one of them.
I am so as a woman in this room to change the status quo of low numbers of women in nuclear industry.
I am going to talk about women in nuclear which is a global movement for a global change.
Women in nuclear or WAN Global was founded in 1993 as a global organization which supports and encourages women working in nuclear industries throughout the world, particularly energy and radiation applications.
The goal of WAN Global is to advocate for stronger roles for women in nuclear science and technology and to increase awareness of the importance of gender balance
in historically male-dominated fields.
It also promotes these areas to women making career choices.
Membership of WAN Global includes women and men working professionally in medicine and healthcare in related authorities, industry and in research.
The members have a common commitment to provide information or communication with the public.
WAN Global is helping to change the perception of girls and young women about nuclear science and technology by increasing the girls exposure to nuclear related topics from a young age
and by building a strong network of women and creating access to role models for the next generation.
WAN Global is a global women empowerment championship with a slogan, together we are change makers.
So I will look at some specific initiatives by WAN Global.
First they have joined forces with the International Atomic Energy Agency
focusing to challenge gender imbalances of human resource strategists in the nuclear power sector and to explore gender balance and inclusion trends present in the global nuclear industry that can be applied in other industries as well.
Two, organizing WAN Global annual conference.
So right from the time of its establishment, WAN Global has organized annual conferences which is a unique occasion for WAN Global community to meet.
Each year, one of the WAN Global chapters proposes incorporation with the board a program including the WAN General Assembly, technical conferences, workshops and technical tools.
Usually the WAN Global excellent award is presented at this event.
For the WAN Global community, this is an excellent opportunity for networking, learning from each other and nurturing friendship.
I must say that I'm standing here today because of attending such a program barely two years ago.
When I got involved with women in nuclear, I happened to be one of the sponsors by IEA to attend the program in Spain, Madrid.
And so during that one, we started talking and I'm here.
And so I'm encouraging all the young ladies here to join WAN Global women in nuclear.
So the 2021 WAN Global annual conference was hosted by WAN Canada and it was just last week from 17th to 21st October under the theme positively charged for success.
This was a virtual event due to COVID-19.
So we look at the third initiative by WAN Global and this is celebration of excellence through prizes and award schemes.
The association organizes WAN Global excellence award.
These awards give visibility to our dees and offer them opportunities to interact with and inspire students about their work.
WAN explains everyday relevance of a subject such as nuclear medicine or nuclear power children are inspired to learn.
Through such interactions, WAN can change the mindsets of the public and show how women are making an impact in science for other generations to follow.
WAN Global is a national, national and institutional platform for inspiring gender equality in the nuclear sector, but advocating the establishment of regional, national and institutional chapters of women in nuclear.
So over the years, WAN has been making strong efforts to support the creation of regional chapters, a crucial pillar to expand its network and legitimacy.
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So the agency has taken concrete steps to improve the representation of women in the
secretariat through targeted recruitment efforts and awareness raising activities and have seen
some improvements in the representation of women at the agency but they are not quite ready to rejoice.
Currently, the representation of women at the IAEA is the highest so far in the history
of over 60 years of the agency's existence.
Women is making up to 30.2% of staff in the professional and higher categories.
Also two of the six deputy director-genres of the IAEA are women.
An example of success in reaching gender parity in the senior roles at the agency is the division of information.
While it is historically a male-dominated field, active campaigns and sourcing strategies resulted in targeted outreach to many qualified women candidates.
At the office of legal affairs, most professional staff are women.
Not only is the director a female, two of the three section heads are women.
Meaning that 75% of the senior staff are women at OLA.
Furthermore, there are 11 female lawyers and 10 male ones.
OLA is also trying to ensure gender parity among the young interns.
Certainly something is working which we can all applaud and be happy about.
So I will look at the success story of women in nuclear global.
With the initiative grow out, the membership of the professional body currently stands as 35,000 from 129 countries.
There are 42 national, regional and international chapters throughout the world and is still growing.
The success stories or case studies presented by participants at a women program is being considered for development into an IAEA tech dog series on guidelines and recommendations for human resources development strategies for gender balance.
Successful development of this tech dog series would be a big push towards gender parity.
A success story of women in nuclear Africa.
As I said, two years ago we all met in Madrid and that is where the story started.
So after several unsuccessful days to establish a woman in nuclear regional chapter in Africa,
when Africa has been established and inaugurated in September 2020.
Currently there are 10 when Africa national chapters.
Seven of them had been established within the last one year, including Ghana.
The membership of women Africa is over 400.
Some initiatives of women Africa have been rolled out including standard for nuclear,
which is being championed by South Africa and radiation emergency preparedness response expert group being championed by Morocco.
We are not talking about what women in nuclear Ghana is doing.
Women in Ghana is a member of women in nuclear global.
The membership includes women working professionally in medicine and health,
in regulatory authorities, in industry education and training as well as research.
The vision of women in Ghana is to be a medium for change of information and awareness creation of the immense contribution of nuclear science and technology
and of safe sea measures that are in place to ensure the protection of the public and the environment thereby enhancing quality of life.
The mission of women in Ghana is to develop discussions with the public on the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the goal for the establishment of women in Ghana is to ensure that the talent and expertise of career women in the nuclear industry will be hand-less for socio-economic growth of the country.
Members of women in Ghana have a common commitment to provide information and communication with the public on nuclear matters.
Since the establishment of women in Ghana, awareness creation of nuclear science and technology in some second-side constitutions has been done in Accra.
However, with the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the program has been put on hold for now.
Notwithstanding the current pandemic and associated restrictions, women in Ghana seek to carry out her mission through outreach and seminars in sexual institutions.
And this we are trying to do via webinars.
It has been observed that in today's world, organizations led by inclusive leadership teams make effective decisions that deliver better results.
A society organization in the present century is unlikely to function effectively without equal participation in leadership by women.
Leadership by women is vital to increase the pace of societal transformation at home and at the workplace.
Women leaders are likely to provide an integrated view of work and family resulting in an engaged and promising personal and professional future.
It has been suggested that a threshold of 30% of women participation in leadership is a critical mass required for women to have an impact in boardroom dynamics.
And we no longer need to explain why increasing number of women in nuclear is important.
If the nuclear industry is redescribing itself to achieve the productivity improvements necessary to be a competitive contributor to the energy mix, it needs to be more creative.
Finally, my conclusion remarks.
From the ongoing, it is critical that nuclear institutions should be committed to gender equality and support the ability of individuals, all of them, regardless of gender, to equal contribution to and benefit.
Gender lies at the heart of the United Nations.
It is vital to fully realize the involvement of the SDGs.
I will just take some few quotes and I am done.
First from Gertrude B, a core winner of 1988 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine.
She said,
Don't be afraid of hard work.
Nothing worthwhile comes easy.
Don't let others discourage you or tell you that you can't do it.
In my day, I was told women don't go into chemistry and I saw no reason why we couldn't.
Mary and Fox, first female chief executive of North Carolina State University, a former chancellor of the University of California, San Diego, also said,
Women have a place at the table when it comes to science.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
And the very final one by General Sportnick, former director general for research at the European Commission, he said,
Let's keep up the good work done so far while continuing to push towards the full inclusion of women in scientific life.
Women deserve it and science will benefit from it.
And on that note, I want to thank you so much for bearing and going along with this long trail of presentation. Thank you.
For that presentation, we'll take questions now.
Okay, we have some questions from our audience.
Good morning and thank you for the interesting presentation and I hope all regulators in women in nuclear because we shouldn't promote nuclear applications. Thank you.
Thank you very much for the questions. The role of regulators, those who ensure that we use radiations properly.
I think I can link their roles as similar to what is being done by the international bodies.
Regulators are to ensure that radiations are used properly so that we don't harm the public and we don't leave any problem for the environment.
And so regulators in promoting the industry ensures that was recruiting people to ensure the gender parity are considered.
So their advertisement and so on ensures that at the end of the day, they will pick men as well as women so long as they are qualified.
And if you are looking at the role of regulators in terms of ensuring the proper use, then I think that is a different level, which I'm sure the regulator when they are here can talk about.
But at the end of the day, the regulator is the institution that ensures proper use of radiation through a number of processes starting from notification, authorization, inspections and so on.
And this is out of the jurisdiction of what we are talking about now.
But in terms of the recruitment processes, they are fair to women.
I must say that I started as a regulator myself.
My 15 years of radiation protection was with the regulatory body of Ghana Atomic Energy Commission.
When I was employed, I was posted to the radiation protection board.
At the time, it was the regulator and service provider at the same time.
So I worked with the RPI for 15 years before my institute was established.
And at the time, I was the only lady appointed.
In fact, at the time, we were about 30 people appointed, but I was the only one picked by the radiation protection institute and how continued with them until my institute was established.
They never discriminated against us.
And over the years, they have recruited a lot more women into the authority.
Thank you.
My question is regarding wind global leadership.
Do we have regulators holding a leadership position in the wind global?
Yeah, the positions as we know wind global is an association, a professional body.
So positions holding it's not by appointment is by selection or elections.
And it goes through the normal electoral processes with the conditions and so on.
So if a regulator qualifies and applies, I'm sure the person will get the necessary support through elections and be appointed.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, we have another question.
Good morning.
Thank you for that presentation.
I was thrilled when the MC was mentioning the citation of the presenter and of course the presenter presented a presentable presentation.
My question is especially in this part of the world, just like you mentioned in the presentation, women are settled with the responsibilities of the families and that tends to hinder their growth in the sciences, especially particular to nuclear science and technology.
Now we've seen the citation of the presenter and it's obvious he was rising to a high level of position in the nuclear science and technology.
Now what advice do you have for our sisters here in Africa?
How do they balance in between your family responsibilities and progression in nuclear science and technology to attain such kind of position you attained?
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
This is a familiar question, I think it always comes up.
It's never easy for women because as we all know, the family.
So if you are a woman and you are working in the industry, whether you are a regulator, a scientist, a researcher, working in the medicine, medical center, whatever, you have to find a way of balancing how do we do it.
We look at the family settings and then make use of available hands, available, reliable hands that you can find within the family settings to be able to make progress.
I will use my own story.
When I joined the radiation protection of the gun atomic energy commission a long time ago, it's actually one week to 27 years.
I was there working young scientists, then I saw an advert about fellowship for PhD, I had then finished my master's.
So I applied.
I just would like to apply because it was given to me too.
So I applied.
Then expecting and I had to go and post the thing within few months I got a response that they have received my application they will get back to me.
And before I could even deliver I got the scholarship.
So here my I haven't even had the baby yet.
I have a scholarship to go and do PhD in South Africa.
So I continue with the processes putting all the necessary efforts.
Then the child came now how to go to South Africa I didn't abandon the program.
I continue but I had to depend on reliable hands so I left the child in the family in the hands of relatives.
So we build on those kind of systems.
So if you have an auntie, a sister, a relative, we can do that.
And then if there is a school, a good school for creche and so on, we have to also use that.
Now I went I came back and I'm here.
I have to be going back and forth all the time but I continue with that.
But then I made use with family and also available creches at the time.
So please if you are a young lady and get opportunity to further your studies, don't give up because of family commitments, make plans for rates.
And then you also had to put in extra hard work.
You had to bend the midnight candle.
You had to do the office work daytime in the evening you are doing family work in the nighttime that is when you are working for yourself.
When everybody is asleep that is when you are working and when you balance this that way I think you can achieve the high that and when small opportunities come you don't put it down you accept.
And as you do small, small things before you know it you are doing bigger things and you are growing your career.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much Prof.
We have a question from our online viewers so.
Okay, we have some question from some from DM by she's accent Professor regarding women in the nuclear industry, her strategy.
Regarding women in the nuclear industry, her strategy do you approach to sensitize them to integrate.
Since it is difficult to convince especially professional women.
That's a question.
About nuclear convincing professional women about nuclear.
I think if you're ready working like we are working at atomic energy and then we have professionals who are nuclear related and those who are working at atomic energy.
And those who are not, we can only make in roles when we have dialogues discussions and so on about nuclear, breaking the language down to the level that they can appreciate.
And that is what we can do also for the general public.
We cannot go about using.
We have to come down to the level showing them the same poor things about nuclear to the level that they appreciate and for them to know that with that nuclear and lots of the benefit that we're enjoying in all the areas I mentioned, we cannot.
There are certainly some areas that there's no other solution to it except using nuclear. So we have to find simple ways simple terms, friendly ways to make our story.
And that is what we intend to do as soon as possible. Unfortunately, COVID is not helping that much but COVID has also shown us some easy flexible ways of doing it, doing programs.
We don't have to really travel to hear at work study my office and do this presentation, probably I should have taken that option instead of driving.
So we can still continue having this kind of interruption using zoom or virtual means to make our story but we have to break the information down to the level that a non technical person can understand and appreciate.
Thank you very much for that.
Those joining us online, you can raise your hands after the presentation is done to ask your questions with subsequent presentations that will come up. Please raise your hands in the zoom and then your mic will be unmuted for you to ask your questions.
We'll move on to our next speaker.
Someone is asking the question.
This speaker mentioned that when Ghana is relatively new. I wanted to ask, are there any challenges that you encountered to establish win Ghana and if they were, how did you go about them and are there also success stories in establishing win Ghana.
Thank you very much.
We started with success stories today is 26 October. So in two days win Ghana will be exactly one year. It was first day 30th of October 2020 when when Ghana was established.
And we have then gathered over 80 database of women working in the industry. Not everyone is very active, but at least over 30 of them.
And so together we have come up with programs that we want to plan we have already done some of them as I said we've done outreach at some schools recently with it to one was to a tertiary institution around we did it by zoom then another one also by zoom we joined the
program and you want to run similar programs in other tertiary institutions. We are hoping that we can get to the second risk was because if we can make nuclear known to the young ones, it can change your mindset.
Let them do science pursue nuclear options and then we can get going in terms of increasing professionals in nuclear especially women professionals regarding hurdles.
I think we didn't encounter much obviously finance is always an issue but there have been some ways as to how to make progress. This, as I said was a push from when Africa also receiving the push from wind global.
So the support to get things done had been. Okay, except the financial which we are working on to improve it.
Okay, thank you very much for all the questions will take for now profit be around if you have any further questions, please reach out to him. I'm sure she'll get them and said for you.