Engineer Her Future
Why this program, why Brimbank, and why this design.
Engineering has a women problem that won't shift on its own
These figures have barely moved in two decades despite sustained outreach. Meanwhile the shortage of diverse talent is widening, not closing.
Engineering is largely absent from school curricula, so girls graduate without ever seeing it as a viable or welcoming path — especially girls with no engineer in their family or community to model it.
Why Brimbank, specifically
Girls here face compounding barriers — geographic isolation, financial disadvantage, and an almost total absence of visible female engineering role models. As a specialist STEM facility co-designed with VU, Brimbank Tech School is uniquely placed to reach exactly the cohort national programs keep missing.
What 115 peer-reviewed interventions tell us
The whole model is built on Monash Education Futures' 2019 review, which found three things predict sustained engagement:
Every design choice maps to one of these findings — which is why the programs are female-only, explicitly called engineering, start as early as kindergarten through IGNITE, and put women engineers and near-peer undergraduate mentors front and centre.
Why a pipeline of programs, not a one-off
A single event creates a spark that fades. The pathway is a deliberate pipeline where each program feeds the next, with a dedicated SUPPORT stream for the teachers who carry it:
Professional learning, curriculum resources and a mentor network for STEM and engineering teachers from early childhood through Year 12. Teachers are the multiplier — without them, the pipeline doesn't hold.
IGNITE feeds INSPIRE; Day participants are invited into the League; League participants are prioritised for Brimbank Genius — and the TAFE and VCE/undergraduate links extend the pathway all the way to a qualification. It's a journey from first curiosity to career-readiness, not a set of disconnected one-offs.
Removed by design, not by accident
From spark to pipeline
It advances SDGs 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10, and directly meets the grant's aim of boosting under-18 participation from underrepresented groups in hands-on STEM.