$10 million conference for Women in Engineering coming to PCC

More than 300 employers will be part of a career fair at the fall conference – an event Society of Women Eengineers Executive Director and CEO Karen Horting said is a prime opportunity for women seeking to make a career pivot, land a senior level position or enroll in an advanced degree program.

Philadelphia's central location in the mid-Atlantic region, where many SWE members are located, helped draw the conference to the city, although Horting said there wasn’t one particular reason they chose Philly as their gathering ground this year — there were many.

The area's plethora of big-name corporations, universities that draw the next generation of engineers and the city's history of innovation, made selecting Philadelphia a no-brainer, said Horting.

“Between the concentration of industry in the area as well as academic institutions that have engineering programs, that was a big plus to us,” said Horting.

She also pointed to the area’s long history of hosting breakthroughs and groundbreaking discoveries, from the first major wire-cable suspension bridge to the first pretzel factory, as an additional draw.

“When you think of engineering and tech, there are certainly a lot of firsts in Philadelphia, so i think from the engineering perspective it’s also very appealing,” said Horting, adding that while the conference was planned before the city hosted the Pope's visit last fall and this summer's Democratic National Convention, the positive press Philadelphia received helped to draw even more attendees.

"Both events put the city in a really nice light, and so that always helps that people have a positive feeling about the venue," she said.