Women In Industrial Design was founded in Autumn of 2018 by Mallory Evans and McKayla Barber with a mission to empower women in industrial design. Later joined by Miranda Degg, Lea Stewart, Lauren, Tati Ferrucio, Mona Sharma, Jessica Hedge, and Emily Trenton, we are nine women who do this out of passion. "We want to help build the community of female-identifying industrial designers, empower women in their careers, and close the gender gap in the design industry." —everything we do is for our mission to grow the community of female industrial designers and close the gender gap in the design industry. We believe that the only way to successfully bridge the gender gap in the design industry is to understand why the disparity exists and understand why the gap grows exponentially wider over time. We look at the problem holistically and tailor our events and workshops to address women at all stages of their careers, starting with support for students through seasoned professionals. Despite a 50/50 gender split in academia, only about 19% of the industrial design industry identifies as female. And the percentage of female creative directors and heads of design? 11%. We decided to form WIID simply because we wanted to continue the conversation about how to grow the community of female industrial designers. Our goal is to help bridge the gender gap in the industrial design industry. By building a strong community of female industrial designers, we can show everyone that there are amazing women doing amazing things in the industrial design industry. We want to mentor women at all stages of their careers and encourage female designers to be leaders. We want to show a diversity of skill sets, demonstrating that you don’t have to fit in one box to be considered a designer. We want to grow this community with a mindset of inclusion and advocate for the issues women face in the industrial design community and the world.