BEYA Global Competitiveness Conference

It was my great pleasure to attend the Black Engineer of the Year Awards in Washington, DC recently. The BEYA organization, whose motto is Becoming Everything You Are, was founded to not only recognize black engineers who are trailblazers in their field, but also to encourage young people to go into science, technology, engineering, and math (the so called STEM careers).

In fact, a large number of youth were in attendance and took part in the conference by presenting new developments engineered at their respective academic intuitions and attending a career fair with very desirable companies to work for. The conference took place over 3 days and boasted seminars about leadership development, science, public health, diversity, inclusion and professional development. CEOs, Presidents, VPs and top executives from Fortune 500 companies and the top STEM organizations in the world were in attendance.

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine, fifth generation multirole fighters under development to perform ground attack, reconnaissance, and air defense missions with stealth capability

At the BEYA conference you are also in the company of 4 star generals, admirals and U.S. senators who are all there to recognize engineers who have largely contributed to their fields. I recall one such engineer who grew up in a war torn country in Africa, taught himself calculus from a math book he found and through great perseverance is now being recognized as one of the Black Engineers of the Year in front of over a thousand people in our nation's capital! Stories of personal triumphant were the theme of the Award Gala and although I was out of my medical element, this conference and the tenacity of the award recipients served me well as motivation to do the very best I can in my own field.

If you or any young people you know are interested in engineering make sure you check out BEYA.org.