Have 5 minutes to nominate a #bankNOTEable woman engineer and influence Canadian history?

BankNOTEable
Image courtesy of the Bank of Canada

On International Women’s Day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Moreau announced that the Bank of Canada will issue a new bank note in 2018 featuring an iconic Canadian woman.

The open call for nominations is an opportunity to celebrate women from Canada’s past whose life and achievements have inspired Canadians. As the Finance Minister notes in this CBC News article, there isn’t a Canadian woman on current bills or coins.

There are several criteria for nominees:

  • The nominee can be any Canadian woman (by birth or naturalization) who has demonstrated outstanding leadership, achievement, or distinction in any field, benefiting the people Canada, or in the service of Canada
  • The nominee must not be a fictional character
  • The nominee must have been deceased for at least 25 years (before April 15, 1991)

OSPE’s Women in Engineering Advisory Committee (WEAC) believes the Bank of Canada’s initiative represents a tremendous opportunity for OSPE members, the engineering community and all Canadians to nominate a woman who’s made significant contributions to engineering.

Chair, Sandra Ausma, PhD, P.Eng., wonders what can be more iconic than a Canadian woman engineer – a trailblazer from over a century ago?

“Having a woman engineer’s face on a bank note can inspire young women, stimulate a new generation of discussions in classrooms about what engineers do, and encourage girls to keep studying math and science,” says Ausma.

OSPE’s President and Chair, Karen Chan, P.Eng., MBA adds that it only takes 5 minutes to complete your nomination.

“Simply respond to a few multiple choice questions, enter the nominee’s name, submit a description of the nominee and you can help bring a piece of history to the foreground,” says Chan.

One outstanding suggestion for representation on the new bank note is Elizabeth (Elsie) MacGill, born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1905. Elsie was Canada’s first woman graduate to hold a degree in electrical engineering, the first woman to be admitted corporate membership in the Engineering Institute of Canada and is considered the first woman designer of airplanes. In 2015, Elsie was featured on the cover of the University of Toronto’s annual alumni magazine.

 

Library and Archives Canada shares a list of other trailblazing women in science.

To learn about the full selection process, click here.

To submit a nomination for a woman you feel is deserving of this recognition, click here.

 

Nominations will be accepted until Friday, April 15, 2016.

You can view a current list of the nominees that other Canadians have put forward by clicking here.

Who will you nominate? Tweet us @O_S_P_E using the #bankNOTEable, or let us know in the comments section below.

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