This week, during the UK's Inclusion Week, we had the privilege of hearing from our trustee, Katy Deacon. She shared her personal story and explained how, following her diagnosis, she used her engineering knowledge to adapt her home. This experience has inspired her to promote a more inclusive approach to engineering in her work and now at the IET.
Her talk about :Why we need inclusive engineering, reminded me of the concept of "humanitarian engineering." While I fully agree with both of these ideas, I believe that in an ideal world there shouldn't be a separation. Engineering should be inherently inclusive and humanitarian, and its purpose should be to solve the relevant problems that arise.
This vision is central to what we aim to achieve with our global IET communities: to be hubs with local and technical expertise. They should be spaces where our members can come together to see how their skills, their community, and their network can be used to address specific local and global needs.
I see so much potential in our more than 100 Local Network communities at the IET, which impact over 78 countries and have already reached more than 25,000 people in 2025 alone. Hearing talks like Katy's makes me feel incredibly grateful to be in a place that aligns so well with my values, and even more so that our executive team also embodies these principles. I'm excited to continue collaborating and seeing how our local hubs launch more and more initiatives that focus on inclusion and solving local issues.
Inspired by Katy’s story? We’d love to hear how you’ve used engineering to make a difference in your community so share your stories with us in the Community Insights blog.
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We're excited to read about the incredible work happening in your communities.