Today marks the fifth International Girls in Aviation Day. Organized by Women in Aviation International, the day aims to encourage girls aged 8-17 to consider a career in aviation. Open Flight Deck provides extensive training and skill development opportunities and welcomes the new ideas and approaches that early careers graduates and student internships can bring to R&D.  So, today’s celebration seemed a fitting time to profile one of the young females who has just completed an internship at GE Aviation.

This is how Diya Anand’s experience with the Open Flight Deck team has led her to pursue aerospace engineering:

“I was given the role of a User Application (UA) developer on the Open Flight Deck project, working on the primary flight display.

It was extremely enjoyable. I personally found designing UAs and creating functionality to be really interesting and working on the project has given me a solid introduction in to the Aerospace industry and really helped develop my technical skills.

The internship was a great way of developing my corporate acumen, learn more about emerging technologies in the engineering industry and, importantly, to help me decide what to specialise in for my second year of Engineering Design at the University of Bristol. I’m pleased to say that the internship on the Open Flight Deck project has helped me decide to pursue Aerospace engineering.

I really enjoyed my experience at GE Aviation. All the staff I came in to contact with were very friendly and helpful, and I’m really impressed with – and excited by – the innovation I’ve witnessed at the company.

My advice to young women pursuing a career in engineering is to be passionate. Never feel insecure and always persevere – no-one should stop you doing what you love.”