A WiSE Way to Encourage Young Women Into STEM Careers

Announcing the AUD$20,000 sponsorship at a recent event marking Bradken’s centenary, CEO Sean Winstone said the ongoing relationship with HunterWiSE reaffirmed the Company’s commitment to giving back to the communities it operates in and to providing a brighter future for women in STEM-based careers.

“Bradken may have been around for 100 years now, but the future of our business relies on evolving with our customers’ needs,” Mr Winstone said.

“To do that we’re going to need the best and brightest brains delivering innovation that solves our customers problems.

“We know that encouraging girls and women into careers like our core business or engineering, can be a challenge, and that when we look at the work being done by our peers in the mining industry, there’s more we can do to ensure gender balance across our global workforce.

“At Bradken, we take our role in being part of a sustainable society very seriously and we are focused on being a modern business, representative of the society it works within.

“To that end, I’m thrilled that we are once again able to work with HunterWiSE, an organisation dedicated to nurturing the minds of the next generation of women in STEM careers. The future is in good hands with the work they do.”

Dr Karen Blackmore, HunterWiSE co-founder and Associate Professor at Newcastle University’s School of Information and Physical Sciences, attended Bradken’s Newcastle-based centenary event and, in accepting the sponsorship said she was grateful to have Bradken on board for another year.

“This is more than just funding because what it does is it represents a commitment, a contribution, a partnership,” Dr Blackmore said.

“We recognise that we need to engage all of society in solving the problems that we have by being innovative, but a group of individuals in and of themselves can’t solve those problems – what we need is partners and we need partners like Bradken.

“Increasing the diversity of our STEM workforce is key to driving innovation and productivity, and Bradken is investing in this for now and for the future.”

Run over 10 weeks, the HunterWiSE Schools outreach program provides female Year 8 students, from schools across the Hunter, the opportunity to work alongside STEM (*Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics) academics and students from the University, and engage with industry sponsors to solve local community issues whilst developing their STEM skills.

Click here to learn more about HunterWiSE: https://www.newcastle.edu.au/research/centre/hunterwise