Celebrating women's leadership

Celebrating women's leadership, female talent and the commitment of large companies to UPV talent. This is the aim of the EMPLEA programme, promoted by the Vice-Rectorate for Employment and Lifelong Learning of the Universitat Politècnica de València, which has successfully celebrated its second edition this year.

A total of 40 women have been selected to participate this year. Thus, since last January, they have joined the 15 challenges proposed by 15 large national and international companies. Under the guidance of their mentors, they have tackled interesting topics such as the differences between men and women and the cement and glass ceilings, negotiation, how to successfully lead a professional and personal career in a global world, and how to create a personal brand and establish networking.

After months of intense work and learning, they presented their conclusions to the board, which awarded Huawei's project, "We are looking for ways to protect children from the risks of the Internet and promote responsible use of technology", mentored by Carmen González Gens, vice-president of Huawei Spain, as the best of all. The participants of this team, Lucía Seco Baquero, Luna Al-halabi Moukahal and Eva Miñana Sánchez, won the 3,000 euro prize.

The second prize went to the project mentored by Macu Boluda, IT director at Mercadona, "Being the best shoppers in the retail sector in the world", in which Alba Gutiérrez, Lucía García and Andrea López participated, who received 2,000 euros for their work.

The third prize, of 1,000 euros, went to "Dimensioning and monitoring resources for a multi-format business model", submitted by El Corte Inglés and supervised by Ana Riquelme Fernández, Sfera's Area Manager for the Levante region.

An exceptional patroness

The patroness of this year's graduating class was Paula Carsí, currently Manufacturing Innovation Manager at Ford of Europe and an aeronautical engineer from the Universitat Politècnica de València, who addressed this year's graduates with some moving and inspiring words.

The closing ceremony of the second edition of the EMPLEA programme was attended by Antonio Galvañ Diez, Regional Secretary for Employment and General Director of Labora; Asunción Quinzá, Regional Secretary for Equality and Diversity; the Vice-Rector for Employment and Lifelong Learning, MªDolores Salvador; and the Rector of the UPV, José E. Capilla.