Meet the Leaders: Engineering for Inclusion (Invited Talks)

Diversity and inclusion is absolutely necessary to effectively compete in a globalized world. This plenary session will focus on ongoing success stories in the area of diversity and inclusion as well as address still unmet needs in both academia and industry. The session will feature a moderated panel of executives from industry and senior academic administrators who have all been personally involved with one successful, major effort regarding diversity and inclusion. Each of these examples will highlight both the implementation and how the initiative could be scaled or replicated elsewhere. Panel members will also include a young working professional who will share their perspective on these initiatives, as well as provide comments to catalyze a discussion of still unmet-needs. The audience will then engage in an active discussion with panel members regarding the examples discussed and future opportunities. The audience will obtain meaningful tools to implement transformative actions to reach their diversity goals.