Thales also participates in Girlsday

If you worked on location in Hengelo today, you may have seen them. Several groups of girls from the Assink Lyceum and CSG Reggesteyn were given a tour inside Thales, because of Girlsday. This is a national initiative aimed at girls between the ages of 10 and 15. Companies and municipalities open their doors to introduce them to technology, but also to get them enthusiastic about it.

Women of that age are often unaware of the different career opportunities in engineering. There are also often not many female role models in their immediate environment. It is therefore important to introduce them to companies like Thales. Where they can see that as a woman you can also go into engineering.

The tour

Thales therefore invited two schools to Hengelo to explain what Thales does as a company, but also to introduce the girls to women who work here. They had shown great things in a program of a few hours. The program looked like this:

The tour began with a presentation about the company. Then the students did a Virtual Reality (VR) exercise. Where they were given the role of the commander, radar, gun, or crew. This exercise was conducted by two women who work on the TACTICOS system. This was a fun way to learn about the Combat Management System (CMS). The tour continued in Hall W, where explanations were given about the various radars. Then, in building Z, they got a further explanation of how a radar works. They were also shown what the radar sees that is on the building. The tour ended in the SFC, where the last activity took place: speed dating. Where they could engage in conversation with our female colleagues.

At the end of the tour, the girls told us that they now have a much better understanding of what Thales does. And that they also found it a good reminder that these are also career opportunities.

A big thanks goes out to the presenters and tourgides who helped with today!

Girlsday is there for a reason

The number of women in engineering is rising, according to industry organization Techniek Nederland. In the last 4 years the number has increased from 15,000 to 17,000. Still, this number is pretty small compared to the total of 200,000 people working in technical professions. This research also found that women are more satisfied with their technical profession in contrast to men: women rate the work with an average of 8.3, men with 8.1.