Breaking the Mould with Women In 3D Printing
Ronen Hadar believes that diversity in experience, background, and thinking, is what brings innovation to the table in his team. Ronen heads up our Additive Design & Manufacturing (AD&M) team here at the LEGO Group, and he is combining his passion and values to address some of the challenges we face in attracting and energising the talent of today to inspire the next generation.
In this article, Ronen shares how we use Additive Manufacturing in brick innovation, and talks about some of the challenges (and solutions!) facing the industry as we continue our journey to be a gender-balanced organisation:
Using Additive Manufacturing in brick development
"We started our Additive Manufacturing (AM) journey nearly two decades ago initially in prototyping to support our product development. During my time here (11+ years!) we’ve continued this journey and most recently, we’ve been looking at producing our iconic LEGO® bricks with AM to achieve new, more innovative functionality. Today we’re expanding it's use all the time, meaning there has never been a more exciting time to join us."
Building a Winning Partnership
We’ve chosen to partner with Wi3DP in direct response to a growing need for more women in our ever-expanding AD&M team. As a fast-growing organisation, they’re the perfect partner to help us reach and engage with more talented audiences – as they have many female professionals with a particular interest in AM. It’s a great match!
Minding the gender gap
"It’s no secret that if you look at engineering schools and universities, the number of female students is lower than that of males. That is not an AM specific issue. However, since AM is still a relatively new discipline and industry, the gap is more noticeable. I also see a difference when recruiting for different disciplines – for example, more design-oriented positions attract more women than engineering ones. Our task is to bridge this gender gap and ensure we’re attracting the very best female candidates to the LEGO Group."
The big fix
"To fix the gap, we need to understand its cause, so as part of our Diversity and Inclusion focus, I undertook some big initiatives to build that understanding. We kicked off with a series of LinkedIn posts, panel discussions, and interviews with the LEGO Group, which lead to some fantastic insights. I hosted a recent Women in Engineering event where female colleagues shared their personal experiences and opinions on the topic, and I took part in several Women in 3D Print (Wi3DP) events to discuss the topic further. And now? I am currently mentoring female AM enthusiasts through the Wi3DP mentorship program for the second year. All fantastic platforms to seek understanding and drive change in the AM corner of the world!"
The bigger picture
"We're also working at encouraging cultural diversity in the team where I have colleagues from across the world, but we have a big challenge when it comes to female representation (currently 25%). If we only tackle one thing, we won’t change this so all these initiatives have formed part of a bigger effort to improve representation. In the meantime, here at the LEGO Group, we have ever more ambitious plans. We’ll continue to push the AM industry towards developing and maturing new technologies and materials and explore bolder new applications."
The future is bright, and I’d love you to be part of it!
Ronen Hadar, Senior Director, Additive Design & Manufacturing in Engineering & Quality