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The Sierra Leone Women Engineers (SLWE) concluded their first-ever Career Fest and Innovation Expo 2025 on Friday, September 26, after two days of events aimed at “Empowering Women—Inspiring Innovation.”
The inaugural event, held at the Freetown Secondary School for Girls, brought together students, young innovators, and industry professionals for career-focused forums and competitions designed to encourage female participation in the engineering sector.
The program featured several notable successes, including:
Quiz Champions: Methodist Girls High School clinched the schools’ quiz competition title with 16 points, defeating Beacon High School, which scored 12 points.
Innovation Winner: A team from Milton Margai Technical University claimed first place in the university-level Innovation Competition, winning a cash prize of 10,000 Leones. Their winning project was a “filter fence” designed to be installed along the Samba Gutter to help prevent flooding.
University Participation: The innovation challenge drew participants from both Milton Margai Technical University and Fourah Bay College.
The event’s programming focused heavily on addressing challenges faced by women in the male-dominated field. This included a Fireside Chat with Female Student Engineers and a Women Engineers’ Panel titled “We Made It Through,” where established female engineers shared their journeys of overcoming professional hurdles.
Fredcilia Akiebo-Cole, a final-year engineering student and Public Relations Officer for the SLWE FBC chapter, praised the organization for its work in breaking barriers. She noted that while female engineers face many challenges, the inspiring testimonies shared during the event have “motivated us and reinforced our passion and commitment to engineering.”
In her closing address, SLWE President Ing. Magdalene Remilekun expressed satisfaction with the high level of talent and creativity on display.
“The future of engineering in Sierra Leone is being shaped by bright young minds prepared to lead,” Remilekun said. She reaffirmed SLWE’s commitment to creating pathways for women engineers to “enter, thrive and expand their presence nationally and globally,” urging participants to “turn knowledge into action” and pursue opportunities in the field.
The successful event received support from several contributing organizations, including The WhiteHill Foundation UK, Africell Sierra Leone, Sierra Rutile, Centurion Engineering Ltd, Luminix Energy Solutions, CEMMATS, and Metro Cable.
