Software engineer wins inaugural award for females under 30 in STEM

Lisa Ihde received the inaugural Young Engineering Award during the WomenPower Career Congress at Hannover Messe (Figure 1). She was one of three finalists that included Dr. rer. nat. Soraya Laghmari El Moussati, lead engineer for environmental technology at Bayer, and Carolin Neumann, associate application consultant at IBM.

The award is intended to motivate females to take up a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Barbara Schwarze, chairwoman of the WomenPower jury, presented the award to Ihde.

Schwarze is professor at Kompetenzz, the not-for-profit German Competence Center for Technology, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, which promotes equal opportunities for women and men in technological development. Kompetenzz is an affiliated institute of the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences (Figure 2).

With the Young Engineering Award, Deutsche Messe is for the first time honoring a female expert from the STEM sector who is no more than 30 years old and who performs or has already performed extraordinary things in the technical environment.

An independent jury comprised of the members of the WomenPower Congress Advisory Board selected Ihde as winner from among the three finalists, thus honoring the immense commitment she exhibits.

Ihde, from the Hasso Plattner Institute Potsdam, is a web designer, game designer, software engineer and author. As co-author, she was instrumental in writing the book "Gamedesign für Dummies Junior." Like the IT industry in general, the gaming industry is heavily male-dominated, making it important for women in the industry to get involved to a greater extent, in order to change the image of women in digital games.

With her commitment, Ihde is a role model for all young women who decide to pursue a career in IT or game design and who need strong role models for these career choices.

Read Ihde’s thoughts on young women in STEM.

Read Neumann’s thoughts on young women in STEM.

Read Laghmari’s thought on young women in STEM.