Meet the ANCOLD Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Working Group
Over 2024, the ANCOLD DE&I Working Group has been working away to better understand the experiences and perceptions of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) within the ANCOLD community. The committee has been primarily focused on the learning and development phase with the following activities:
The committee has also focused on awareness within the community, running the LinkedIn ‘Women in Dams’ campaign, and our DE&I Panel session at the 2024 ANCOLD conference. The DE&I committee are looking forward to 2025 and working with the ANCOLD community in this space.
Meet some of our ANCOLD DE&I committee members who are working with ANCOLD on their Diversity, Equity & Inclusion journey. We asked them: Why is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) important to you?
Jodie Kilpatrick, Principal Dams Engineer – SLR Consulting
Diverse representation at all levels serves as inspiration for current and future generations, demonstrating that success is achievable regardless of background. DE&I principles help to break down barriers in the industry that may limit people from reaching their full potential.
Andrew Reynolds, Australian Dams Leader – GHD
Embracing diversity and promoting inclusion opens the door to greater innovation through access to new and different perspectives. Enabling individuals of all backgrounds to develop and contribute to community life enriches conversations and helps ensure we find lasting solutions. Providing pathways for people to maximise their potential and have meaningful involvement in our industry ensures we have the greatest talent pool to meet the challenges of the future.
Aida Gibbons, Principal Dams Engineer- Southern Rural Water
DE&I fosters a sense of community and belonging, where everyone feels comfortable being their authentic selves.
Diverse groups bring a wider range of perspectives, experiences, and ideas, help to mitigate biases and blind spots, resulting in more informed and effective decisions.
Erin Poirot, Senior Associate Engineering Geologist – SMEC
DE&I is important to me in the context of ANCOLD as it has the potential to provide an increased talent pool for the Australian dams industry, and resulting increased innovation brought by individuals with different perspectives.
Kapil Singh, Associate Dams Engineer – Aurecon
Diverse perspectives significantly improve our technical problem-solving capabilities, enabling the development of more comprehensive and sustainable infrastructure solutions. By creating inclusive professional pathways, we can effectively expand our expertise and enhance engineering innovation.
Hetal Parmar, Manager Operations Asset Planning – WaterNSW
DE&I is important to me because it helps to create effective cultural intelligence and a more empathetic and innovative industry. DE&I principles foster a culture of respect, belonging and sense of community, and help drive individual and business/industry transformation.
The above team is also supported by our additional working group members: Colleen Baker (Technical Director, Dams and Hydropower – GHD & ANCOLD Deputy Chair), Franceska Strano (Technical Services Manager- North Region – Water NSW) and Richard Rodd (Principal Engineer – Richard Rodd & Associates Pty.Ltd).
The DE&I Working Group welcomes all communications and collaborations with the ANCOLD community, you can contact us at [email protected].
ANCOLD is an incorporated voluntary association of organisations and individual professionals with an interest in dams in Australia.
System maintenance will be performed on the servers that host the ANCOLD Digital Guidelines, on Saturday, December 21st @ 10:00 PM AEDT which will require the servers to reboot.
Total downtime during that event could be up to 4 hours and will commence sharply at 10 pm AEDT. During that time end users will not be able to view or access their secured content.