Why us?

Engineering is a field of huge influence on how society functions and yet an area where many European countries have struggled to encourage their young to consider engineering as an important career opportunity.

Portia's aim is to create new ways of providing children with the opportunity to learn about what engineering is about and raise their aspirations for following a career path in engineering, in particular among those coming from background with no tradition or role models of professional engineers.

We work in partnership with relevant professional engineering institutions; pay due attention to issues of quality; collaborate with schools to make sure the event fits-in to local conditions and benefit their students.

Recently it has emerged that these sessions benefit more than just the children. The volunteer engineers have given us much positive feedback about how their own careers and lives have benefited from being involved in SET for Sport by: improving their communication skills; increasing their confidence in communicating engineering to a general audience; improving their ability to describe engineering in an interesting and engaging way; contributing to their Chartership requirements; and providing a networking opportunity with engineers from other companies and fields.

Our current plan is to adapt the SET for Sport event as a day of team-building activities for engineers employed by companies.