Not Settling for the Norm: I Didn't Know It Was Called EDI (My Discovery)

Many people care about fairness and equality, yet don't always recognise their instincts and actions as part of a formal practice called Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. In this reflective seminar, I share my journey into EDI, one that began not with a plan or a framework, but with an early awareness of inequality in different forms growing up in a developing country, and a determination, as one of just 6% of women in my engineering cohort, to make space for others.
Drawing on initiatives including the Women in Data Science Edinburgh event, EDI guidance for new programme proposals, my role as co-chair of the STEM Inclusivity Network, contributions to the Graduate Apprenticeship programme, and outreach work in local primary schools, this session traces how a series of small, often unplanned commitments accumulated into a career thread. It reflects on how EDI work is rarely about getting things right from the outset, and more often about refusing to settle for what is considered normal and continually trying to do better.