Dreamers & Makers

Karolina Podulka is a project engineer at Sener Aerospace where she focuses her activity on design and structural analysis. During her five years at Sener, she has worked on the ATHENA, E-deorbit and JUICE missions, and has also participated in the ELT project.

We talked to her on International Working Women’s Day

What appealed to you about the science and technology sector?

From an early age I was interested in science and technology, so it was a natural choice for me. What I enjoy about this area is that every day brings new challenges, new problems to solve. For me the most satisfying are the final phases of the project, seeing and testing piece of hardware that has been worked on for months.

What are the challenges and opportunities women face when they enter the professional world?

Personally, during my professional path, I never felt that I had to face other challenges or that I had other opportunities than men. For this reason, it is difficult for me to answer this question. It is possible that the situation changes when children appear, although observing the involvement of my colleagues in the fatherhood, I am quite positive about the future.

In the future, in what areas would you like to make further progress, what will be your challenges?

I would like to develop in my field and gain more experience. In addition, I plan to increase my knowledge of people management. What may be a challenge in the future are young people entering the labour market with whom I will cooperate. I can see it on my own example as a person who grew up in completely different times than my parents.

Education is fundamental for personal, professional and social progress. As a professional, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “For an inclusive digital world: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. How do you think education in the digital age can help achieve gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls?

I hope that access to technology and the opportunity to observe life in the countries where women have exactly the same rights as men will allow for a change in the law and attitude towards women elsewhere in the world. The last century has shown how big changes can take place in this topic. Of course, we would like this process to be much faster, but we should also be glad that the situation is changing.

We might think that, in countries like ours, both boys and girls have the same access to the Internet and technological devices and that, therefore, interest in technical careers should be more balanced. Why do you think that there is still a greater percentage of men in this sector?

I think it has a lot to do with the difference in the upbringing of boys and girls. When I was a child, girls often got dolls, houses and kitchen accessories, while boys played with cars and Legos. I think it is hard to expect girls to show the same interest in technology later on. Fortunately, more and more parents are aware of this problem and try to keep a balance.

What advice would you give to future generations?

I don’t feel ready to give advice to future generations. I hope that in the future, the topic of gender equality will be something obvious and there will be no need to even discuss it

Could you tell us about a woman you admire who inspires you in this profession?

I am inspired by women who were ahead of their times, such as Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Thanks to such brave and ambitious women, we now have the same rights and opportunities as men. I hope that we also can be an inspiration for women suffering due to gender inequality to fight for their rights.

A phrase or slogan you would like to say for International Working Women’s Day.

We women should support and cooperate with each other, not compete and compare. In this way, we can achieve much more.