23 June 2025
Tech Titans: A spotlight on Women in Engineering
The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is an international organization formed with the mission to empower women to achieve full potential in careers as engineers and leaders, expand the image of the engineering and technology professions as a positive force in improving the quality of life, and demonstrate the value of inclusion.
Founded in 1950, SWE operates globally with around 50,000 members across 85 different countries. At Smith+Nephew, we’re proud to support nine chapters of SWE at our sites in the US, Costa Rica, Australia and the UK.
In addition to providing professional growth sessions and networking opportunities, Smith+Nephew’s SWE chapters support local STEM outreach with home tutoring, and volunteering with local schools and science competitions.
Tech Titans, the group’s latest initiative, invites female engineers to showcase their contributions to Smith+Nephew’s latest innovations.
Kalavati Bhashyam, our Global SWE Lead, explains, “the goal of this speaker series is to highlight female engineers doing remarkable work across the company; driving innovation and improving care for patients.”
Following a kick-off talk about the development of the CATALYSTEM◊ Primary Hip System, sessions so far have covered topics from 3D-printing implants, to the development of the TESSA◊ Spatial Surgery System (pending FDA approval) and Measurement System Analysis. Further talks from manufacturing engineers, wound care R&D and systems engineers will continue the Tech Titans series through October 2025.
Inclusion and belonging are far from buzzwords at Smith+Nephew, and our SWE chapters help us to turn them into meaningful action.
Working within an open and inclusive culture, our female engineers are helping us to create and produce cutting-edge medical technology that enables healthcare professionals to transform patients’ lives for the better. A lived example of our purpose of Life Unlimited in action.
We’re looking forward to seeing our SWE chapters go from strength to strength, both for this generation of female engineers and the next.