Welcome to an eye-opening episode of Innovation Deciphered, where our Director, Tim Fitch, engages in a profound discussion with Mark McBride-Wright, Chair & Co-founder of InterEngineering and Founder & Managing Director of EqualEngineers.
This episode highlights the exponential importance and need for diversity, inclusion, and safety in the construction sector and what steps must be taken to achieve a future where everyone can feel represented and ultimately safe. Mark's journey began at a diversity event in construction where he recognised a stark absence of LGBTQ+ representation. That moment of transcendence, where his identity as an engineer intersected with being a gay man, sparked a natural passion.
In response, Mark co-founded InterEngineering, a platform with a mission to connect, inform, and empower LGBTQ+ engineers and their allies, fostering greater inclusion in engineering. Over the past decade, they've conducted panel discussions and provided open-source materials to enact meaningful changes in businesses. But Mark's commitment didn't stop there. He founded EqualEngineers seven years ago, identifying engineering as a sector lacking diversity and inclusion. The platform addresses this through training, recruitment, media, and events, recognising the impact on performance, growth, innovation, and overall wellbeing.
Mark, with a background in safety engineering, seamlessly bridges physical and psychological safety. He translates his safety engineering knowledge into creating safe workplace cultures. The culture he ignites encourages calling out non-inclusive behaviours as much as calling out unsafe acts without fear of retribution.
The conversation takes a poignant turn as Mark discusses the alarming suicide rates in construction, manufacturing, and process industries in the UK. The reality of one in four engineering professionals reporting suicide ideation and losing a colleague to suicide underscores the urgent need for change. Mark confronts the industry, questioning why such a high-risk incident rate is tolerated and challenges listeners to consider what they plan to do about it.
As much as we try to get all the information in as we can, this episode only touches the surface, if you would like to hear more from Mark he has an upcoming book called, "Engineering Inclusive Culture: Masculinity, Mental Health, and a New Model of Safety in STEM," which continues to shed light on critical topics like discussed in this episode.
Learn more about InterEngineering here: https://interengineeringlgbt.com/
Learn more about EqualEngineers here: https://equalengineers.com/
#InnovationDeciphered #DiversityInEngineering #InclusiveCulture
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