Who are you and what is your background in engineering? I am the Director of Jabin Group, a 100 per cent Indigenous owned and operated engineering design and consulting business. We specialise in structural and façade engineering and consultancy, and client-side project management and contract management. I am the inaugural and current Chair of the Indigenous Engineers Group (IEG) within Engineers Australia.
What are the goals of the Indigenous Engineers Group? The IEG is positioned within the College of Leadership and Management; where we are aiming to connect, network and grow our current Indigenous engineers’ network throughout Australia. We want to provide a space for discussion and action around current STEM topics of interest that affect Indigenous people and communities. We hope to develop a group that supports our network of professional engineers, while developing better opportunities for Indigenous youth and people to follow a path of engineering as a career choice.
What is the Indigenous Engineering Group working on for the next few months? We will grow our network and its impact to support our current cohort of engineering professionals and attract the next generation of engineers. We are also helping to deliver Engineers Australia’s new Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). Another exciting initiative we are involved with is partnering with Engineers Without Borders in a new Pathways Development program. It is looking at creative ways to attract the interest of Indigenous communities and kids into pursuing STEM subjects and engineering.
What kind of opportunities are there for Indigenous engineers throughout the profession? There are numerous opportunities for Indigenous people to get into STEM for varying age groups. For school aged kids there are engineering and STEM summer and winter schools at top Australian universities including Engineering Aid, Victorian Indigenous Engineering Winter School (VIEWS) and university-based programs like those at James Cook uni aimed at year 9–12 students. Deadly Coders, from ages 7 to 16 also aims to get kids into computer coding and IT. There are university scholarships across all areas of STEM, not just engineering. Mentoring and development programs such as Career Trackers also assist students at university to link into organisations and gain networks for work when leaving uni. Post university, we hope that the IEG will be the group Indigenous engineers starting their career look to for support, networking and career development and then stay with us throughout their work journey.
For engineers widely what are some key areas of reflection that they can take into their everyday work? The main area I would say is to think about the land and area that you might be working on and understand that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been utilising this land sustainably for thousands of years. Spend time researching the land and people, as well as learning to listen and learn from people outside the engineering sector in relation to sustainable practices and methods. Two-way learning, where we can learn together is a very effective method in gaining respect and increasing knowledge.
How can Engineers Australia, and engineers in general, improve in their support of reconciliation and closing the gap? The key is understanding that the learning process is bi-directional; a lot of knowledge and respect can be gained by simply sitting down, listening and talking to each other openly. We need to speak about how we can both develop, from our culture to how Indigenous knowledge and processes can assist in the positive development of our engineering design and methodologies.
Engineers Australia will host a Reconciliation Week webinar, with the theme 'be brave, make change' on Friday 3 June at 12.00 pm AEST.