São Luis - The 1st Forum on Women in the Technology Field began this week in the city of São Luis, in the state of Maranhão. The Forum proposes to change society's vision of engineering by enhancing awareness about women's participation in the technological sphere and assigning the hard sciences a central role in the process of social inclusion.

"It is engineering, architecture, and agronomy that builds houses, projects bikelanes, and takes care of the Amazon. And Brazil needs these technological areas for its social development," says the organizer of the Forum, Deodete Packer, a mechanical engineer.

She underscores that women were responsible for projects that placed Brazil among the countries in which high technology is developed, but they ended up not receiving the recognition they deserved. "Victôria Rossetti, who is an agronomical engineer, was the most important force behind Brazil's Genome project. But she lives in the countryside and loves the land, and few people know who she is," Packer affirms.

This year, all the categories of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development's(CNPq) Young Scientist award were won by women.

Agência Brasil
Reporter: Bruno Bocchini
Translator: David Silberstein
12/03/2004