 All right everyone, let's go ahead and get started. We're here today to talk about building towards the nuclear energy workforce of the future. We're going to do introductions here and then we're going to go through about 30 minutes of just fireside chat conversation and then we'll have about 10 to 15 minutes at the end for questions. So if you have any questions, please write them down and we'll take questions at the end. I'll start. I'm going to introduce myself first. My name is Christy Fletcher. I am the Vice President of North American Young Generation in Nuclear. We are a non-profit of all volunteers who focus on developing the next generation in the nuclear industry. We do a lot of community outreach and public information because there's a lot of good points about nuclear and so we really prioritize getting that out to the public. For my day job, I'm a mechanical engineer. I work for a company called Intercon Services out of Atlanta, Georgia in the U.S. I do basically anything to keep the existing nuclear fleet up and running. So I've done everything from replacing valves, heat exchangers, pumps, anything like that, minor mods. That's what I specialize in. And a fun fact about me, I love to play Ultimate Frisbee. I've traveled across the U.S. from California to New Jersey with my husband playing the sport that I love. I'm going to give a brief introduction of the session and then turn it over to Shaz. So our topic for today, the workforce, has become a large topic of conversation. Those countries are experiencing some kind of challenge with their workforce. And so this panel is going to offer insight into workforce and how do you develop a workforce kind of through the lens of the nuclear industry. And you might say, well, why nuclear? One of the reasons is nuclear requires a highly trained and skilled labor force. And so if we can develop a labor force for nuclear, any other clean energy sector should be able to copy what we do and have success at the end of the day. And it's also very exciting that 20 countries have signed up to triple their nuclear capacity by 2050 and so here to promote nuclear as well at COP. Today's session, we're specifically going to focus and explore on how we can meet existing and future workforce challenges with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DE&I. So I'll refer to it as DE&I going forward. And to, oh, hey Valerie. Welcome. Perfect timing. So to help me explore these weighty topics, I have two extraordinary women here with me today and I'll let them introduce themselves. Hello, I'm Berlée Feudon. I'm the Director General for the French Nuclear Society. So we are the nuclear scientists in France. We're part of the European Nuclear Society. And we also have relationships with women in nuclear and the French Young Generation Group. Welcome. Shaz? Hi, I'm Shanaz Hock. I go by Shaz and I work for the Nuclear Energy Agency, which is part of the OECD in Paris. I'm also here supporting Nuclear for Climate, the young generation network of international activists and people representing the nuclear industry from around the world. And yeah, I'm excited to talk about workforce today. Excellent. Do you all have any opening remarks before we jump into questions, things, background you want to give our audience? Yeah, I think we've seen an extraordinary week where we had the heads of states pledging for a tripling of nuclear capacity. And we also had the industry committed to the nuclear capacity. But what we've learned from industry in particular is that one of the key factors to be successful will be, of course, our workforce. And to be able to hire and train and motivate our nuclear workforce I think will be key factor for success. So that's why this meeting is so important. Yes, agreed. Hi. No, I'm mic'd up. So I prepared some remarks for this, I might just go through that. Thanks all for joining this important dialogue on workforce development in the nuclear sector. My journey into the nuclear sector stems from a conscious decision driven by commitment to contributing to climate solutions. Like many in my generation, I sought to apply myself in the best way possible, leveraging my strengths through higher education and professional development. From an engineer to a scientist to my current role in international policy. I'm not an expert in workforce development. I won't be presenting any studies or analysis today. Instead, I'm delighted to participate and share my remarks based on my lived experience as a young woman early in my career in the nuclear sector. As we hurry towards rapidly expanding green industries to address climate change, I think it's important to ensure our plans are underpinned with inclusivity and equity from the start. In the countries I've worked in, I am a minority in this sector in several different ways. I know how it is to be underrepresented or not represented. I don't often see many with whom I share a background with and who might therefore represent my experiences in leadership spaces making decisions about the future. Since I have the privilege of being here today, I wanted to share some thoughts based on my own experiences. As the world collectively strives to expand global nuclear capacity by 2050, hopefully tripling, to address rising energy demands, it becomes increasingly evident that enhancing the production capacity of the supply chain is imperative. While higher education programs play a pivotal role in nurturing the next generation of scientists and engineers like us, we must equally acknowledge the indispensable contributions of skilled crafts people and trades people whose impacts resonate globally within this expansive international supply chain. For every nuclear engineer required for a new build project, the world will need hundreds of skilled workers across the supply chain. In the timeline of my own career, I have witnessed these sectors expanding. From many more students studying nuclear engineering at my university, since I graduated that course in its first year, to the large workforces which have developed to build nuclear projects like the one I worked on at Hinckley Point C. Nuclear reactors often require specialist skills, for example in welding or the operation of nuclear cranes, which take time to develop and are often taught through apprenticeships where young trainees learn from the previous generation of experts. Yet this is a sector which has undoubtedly suffered from the generational gap in nuclear new build around the world. In addition, this sector is well known to be male dominated. To achieve the expansive and just transition we all hope for, we need to invest in developing and expanding this sector again. But here at the beginning of the transition, we have an opportunity to ensure that it is developed in a more inclusive way than previous generations. This discourse on workforce development resonates within the broader context of green skills, emphasising the importance of international cooperation, a theme aptly encapsulated by COP. Seeing that young people, including young women, are the architects of our future workforce, I find it imperative to actively engage them in this dialogue, seeking their perspectives on the necessary steps in crafting strategies to attract and retain them, with a special focus on achieving gender balance. I welcome the perspectives of NAYGN from Christie. As I've heard that they're leading the way in the US with programmes to attract, train and develop the next generation. The inspiring precedent set by nuclear youth groups in international collaboration like NAYGN and many others like Nuclear for Climate, who I'm working with here at COP, underscores the potential for addressing our workforce challenges through a lens of inclusivity. Youth groups are in a unique position as people who are desperate to have an impactful climate careers to save their own futures on this planet, to impact policy, engage with the public and to help attract, retain and train more young people entering the field. In addition to being young, for now, I have the pleasure of being a woman in nuclear. I obviously have my own experiences of what this has been like, but sometimes it can be cathartic to see data in the world which resonates with your own reality. I felt this resonance when I recently read the new NEA report on gender balance in the nuclear sector and was not entirely shocked to see that it shows women are severely underrepresented in the nuclear around the world. I note here that I was not involved in the development of this report personally. My work at the NEA is focused on SMRs and medical radioisotopes mostly, but I'm very glad that the NEA has produced analysis on this important topic. Some of the key outcomes it raised include that women are 25% of the sector workforce and less in STEM and leadership roles. Female new hires and promotions are clustered in non-STEM roles. At current trends, gender balance will not improve. Women are paid less than men in the sector. Women face negative career impacts from pregnancy and family responsibilities. This challenge is not unique to the nuclear sector, but certain characteristics of nuclear careers exacerbate the impact. Women working in the sector report experience workplace hostility, sexual harassment, cultural biases and report a lack of management and institutional support. Negative impacts are higher for women in STEM roles and women from underrepresented communities. Looking at those outcomes, I felt stronger in my lifelong belief that it is crucial to address the underrepresentation of women in the nuclear sector. This gender imbalance is a challenge that requires immediate action and attention. The sector must work collectively to break down barriers, provide equal opportunities and create a workforce that is free from bias, harassment and discrimination. New bill projects provide an opportunity to have impact on the future. Drawing insights from recent new bill projects globally, valuable lessons and best practices can be gleaned from expanding the supply chain and nurturing the skilled workforce needed. Knowing that gender balance is a fundamental aspect of this development. New bill projects affirm that nuclear and other green industries offer not just jobs but well-paid, long-term and skilled employment opportunities accessible to individuals of all genders. To conclude, advocating for a youth-centric and gender-inclusive approach, I eagerly anticipate exploring examples of successful training initiatives, apprenticeships, local community engagement and funded programs throughout our discussion on workforce development. These initiatives collectively contribute to shaping the next generation of skilled workers, ensuring a diverse, inclusive and vibrant workforce, particularly with regards to gender balance for the future of the nuclear sector. Thanks. Well said, Shaz. All right. We're going to build on everything that Shaz just kind of introduced with some questions. And like I said at the end, we'll have 10 to 15 minutes for questions from the audience. So my first question, we're going to focus on current challenges. So what do you see as the greatest current workforce challenge? We're going to do future challenges here in a second, but today, what is the challenge of today's workforce? So I'll answer on my side. So actually for us, today's challenge is the same as a future challenge because we already have visibility on the program we want to launch. We are right now expanding the lifetime operations of French nuclear plants from 40 to 50. And we'll know we'll go from 50 to 60 years. We have a law going to parliament to build six new EPRs plus an option for eight additional ones. So that's 14 large-scale reactors that we have to build. We have a program on Gen 3 SMRs as well as advanced modular reactors. We have 15 startups that have just come in. In addition, we are on our way to build our geological repository. We have to renew our backend fuel cycle plants by 2040. And of course, we have to equip ourselves with research facilities to support the AMR program. So we really have plenty, plenty of things to do. So what the industry has done, the GIFEN, who is the industry organization, is that they have worked for three years to evaluate how many people we need to achieve all these programs. So they have sat down with seven operators asking them what kind of activities they will drive internally and what kind of activities they will do with suppliers. And then they have also made work groups with about 100 suppliers and estimated the workload for the plants, the supplier plants, as well as a number of people that we needed to hire. And the result was that we need to hire 100,000 people in the next 10 years. And we have to start now. We have a peak now and another peak around 27, 28. So basically everybody is just hiring now. And that's really the challenge we have. So these 100,000 people, they have been identified in about 20 segments and 80 different skill sets. So we have a very precise information. And the big challenge is that we have limitation with a pool of the people we can hire from. Because for years people have thought that industry was dirty and that nuclear has no future. So now we have not enough students that are going into the technical tracks, the science tracks and the engineer tracks. So what we do in Sven is that we try, especially with the women in nuclear group and the young generation group, we go to high schools, really. We go to people who are young guys and women that are 12, 13 year old and tell them how exciting industry jobs are, engineering jobs are, you know, technical jobs are. And so to be able to really increase the pool that we have. And it's even more extreme for young women because for a reason I can't understand because it was true when I went into engineering school, but apparently it's still true. Women are kind of under pressure by the environment that technical jobs are not for women. And so we still have, in the last 10 years, we still not moving, I mean we have right now 28% of women in engineering jobs in France. But it's moved a lot from 2020 to 2010. But since 2010 it's not increasing. So we really have to do a special effort on women, otherwise we're missing half of a potential skill set that we can have. So did I answer your question? Yes, yes. Thank you. Thanks Valerie. Shaz, anything to add for current workforce challenges? I mean, yeah, you said a lot already. I think it's only on friends. I think a lot of the things that you said do, from me, resonate for other countries around the world as well. I think personally, workforce retention is an important factor. As a young woman in the work, in the nuclear sector, I feel like it's every day I have to consider and reconsider my career, my future career plans staying in this sector. And it's really encouraging to see commitments like the tripling of nuclear that we saw here at COP last Saturday by 20 different governments, showing us young people in the sector that there is a commitment towards developing and expanding the nuclear sector so we can look to our futures to stay here. But specifically, you know, it would be good to see a change in the workforce culture, in the workplace culture to try and solve some of those problems that NEA report highlighted about that women face and young people face and people for minorities also face in the workplace, you know. I think looking into some solutions for those problems, I can't offer any now, I'm not an expert, but it would be interesting to know how, you know, perhaps having more women in leadership roles and trying to encourage women to stay, that might help to integrate a better culture for the next generation of women coming through, but it's more suitable for them to stay in the workforce. I think that's really something that struck me from the OECD NEA study, it's over data showing that some women don't feel comfortable in their work environment. You know, when I was your age, in France I was working in another industry, the nuclear, but we were visiting plants, we had pictures of naked women on the wall, so I think this is gone, but I realize it's, you know, women still hear sexist comments or have a feeling they're hearing a sexist woman in their work environment, and sometimes the people who are doing the sexist comments, they don't know that, you know, it's not fun, and so it's important to have trainings, and if you look at, you know, an example of EDF and other, you know, industrial players in France, they have training programs just to say, educate people about, they call that ordinary sexism, which is, you know, stupid little jokes, but that in the end may women feel they don't belong here, right? So I think we have to pay specific attention to this, because I think people don't realize how women feel sometimes, and they don't feel home, and we have to make them feel home, because sometimes we spend a lot of effort to attract them, and then they don't feel home, so we have to make as much effort to attract them as, you know, making them feel home and give them them promotions and opportunities. I feel like also it's like a, almost like a chicken and egg situation, you know, you've got to attract those women and then try to retain them in the first cohort, but then also as a young woman going into this field, I remember my, I went, during my first internship, it wasn't with, who I work with now, it wasn't with an engineering consultancy in the UK, and I had to go to an office up in Warrington, like the north of England, and I was the only woman in the office that whole internship who wasn't secretarial stuff, the only female scientist engineer there, and it was very difficult when I went back to university to finish my degree to think about how I, to try and imagine myself going to that workplace and building a career there, and building a life there. Luckily I got, I got sent to a different office in Bristol, which was bigger and had more women in it, which probably looking back isn't a surprise because it was a bigger city, more multicultural, more diverse, attracted more people, had a lot more of a support system and a network for women and minorities there than this smaller town in the north of England, and I think that experience made me think about how these solutions are quite, they need to be holistic, it can't just be let's hire women and then just hope they stay, it's, it's kind of like let's hire women and then what kind of things influence these young women to consider not just the first year of their jobs, but like the second year, five years time, 10 years time, are we bringing enough other people from underrepresented communities here? Are we supporting them in ways that we perhaps didn't need to support our male stuff historically? We're providing spaces, you know, as a Muslim and there was a one other Muslim person in that office and he used to go and pray because we have to pray five times a day. He used to pray in like a broom closet because there was no where else to go for him and they, you know, he just kind of did it quietly and he let me know that there was a space there. So things, considering things like this, like trying to engage these these young communities as they come in and trying to figure out how to develop them, how to support them and integrate that as like a permanent cultural change in your workforce, that's the thing that's going to retain the people, that's the thing that's going to attract these interns when you have them coming into your organizations, you know, and being able to feel like you're going to be supported, being able to see yourself in that organization and see your life in that organization, you know, not just your job because a lot of the time young people are moving to different countries, moving to different towns and cities in order to follow these jobs. With a lot of passion in nuclear, like, you know, build on that passion, build on that enthusiasm. Yeah, that's what I've got to say about that. I think the US has a lot of the same problems that both of you have experienced. You mentioned 100,000 people need to join your workforce to support future work. The US predicts we need like 375,000 to support the next generation of nuclear reactors in the US. I mean, thinking through the number of technical jobs that we're going to have to have, where are those people going to come from? And they're going to come from young people and diverse sources. So we definitely we're going to explore that here going forward, but how to recruit and engage and retain people from diverse areas. I have to say that in France we have started also trying to attract people that as the second career. So I remember we have this prize from woman in nuclear and there was a lady and she was a saleswoman in like a clothes store, right? And she saw an ad and she got, you know, and she got the training for one or two years. And now she has a technical job in a plan. So I think we have to be really open-minded because now we'll have long careers as we live longer. And some people, especially women, they didn't get the right orientation at the beginning. They were not really aware of the different jobs. They were discouraged from taking technical jobs. So they discovered these jobs later in their careers. And I remember there was an industry guy was saying, I really don't care about what people know how to do. I just want them to be hard worker, you know, to come on time to be reliable, to be able to work in a team and I'll train them, right? So I think for, you know, technical operators jobs, I think it's really a great, great initiatives. One thing we've done, I forgot to mention also to attract students is that we have created fellowships. So we have created fellowships to support technical students. And I think it's great because we, first, we give more and more fellowships every year. But also it's an opportunity to communicate to all the training, all the schools, all the universities and make visible that there are jobs and opportunities in a nuclear industry. And I think that's been a very, very good idea and good action. I'm glad you mentioned the fellowship that you guys are doing. I remember in the preparation for this, I heard that NYGN, which Christy is the vice president of North American Young Generation Network. You got it. I they have quite a lot of training programs for attracting and recruiting and training up people from not just higher educational backgrounds, but across the board. And I would be fascinated to hear about that. Yeah. So we can touch on two of those. The first is Nucleters. So that's actually like a program where we bring in a small cohort and they go through like any kind of training, leadership training. We bring in professionals from the outside. They meet a couple times a month. They've got an in projects and it really sets them up for success. You know, if they're ready to take that next step, whatever it may be in their career, they've received some specialized training and guidance from leaders in the industry. And the other is the Atomic Mentoring Program. We call it AMP. It's a special program that partners somebody with less experience with somebody with more experience. So it might be partnering a student with somebody who's new to the industry and that same person who's a mentor to a student is also being mentored from somebody who has more experience in the industry, maybe even at the executive level. So it really builds on itself and it lets, I think it's really geared people in the middle are probably received the most because they're being a teacher. They're learning how to teach and they're learning how to train students. And they're also, you know, not the experts, not by a long shot. They're still new to the industry. So they're receiving that guidance at the same time and able to pass that down. So it's a really cool program we've had up and running for a few years and plan to continue. Yeah, it's really amazing to hear. Honestly, I wish I knew about these things or that they existed when I was starting my career. Yeah. Yep. Great. We kind of already hit on it. But you know, what can we do to develop the future workforce? And so we've already talked about training programs and things like that. Another is making training that people receive in their jobs, modernizing it and streamlining it, right? So I think we talked about at the beginning how the nuclear industry requires so much training. We have such a skilled workforce. And the amount of training you need to get there is extensive. And it's so extensive that I think a lot of people can see it as a hurdle to entering the industry, especially if it's maybe their second job. And so finding a way to make it more approachable, to make it desirable, to really showcase what nuclear can do and the types of skills that can be learned. Maybe they stay with nuclear, hopefully they do. But even having skills that translate to other industries if they did decide to leave. So that's that's something that that NEI in the US has really focused on and tried to figure out a way to encourage the US plants to modernize and streamline together. It's highly variable from utility to utility and plant to plant right now. The other thing I wanted, we've hit on a lot of gender diversity right now, but age diversity as well. So something in the US that we're about to have our workforce that built our current plants is retiring. And they're retiring in mass. And all of that knowledge is about to disappear. Because they should enjoy their retirement and not get phone calls like, Hey, why did you design it this way? Right now I can still I still call one of the implementers when I'm having trouble reading a drawing that's really old. And I'm like, Hey, I don't understand why this piping is the way that it is. And I call him up. He's like, Yeah, I remember installing that 30 years ago, this is why we had to do it this way. And that knowledge is about to be gone. And so how do we find a way that all of those people with that incredible amount of knowledge can transfer it to people just entering the industry? I don't know that there's a solution out there right now, but that's definitely something that's been identified. You know, and we'll deal with it as it comes as people age out of the industry. One thing I've noticed is that so we have 15 startups and they're really I need to hire people with experience. And they go to the retirees and propose jobs. And actually, they're very excited because it's working on new designs, you know, for years, like an incredible creative designs. And it's really striking because when you go to visit the startups, you have a mix of of grandpas and 25 40 year olds that are there. And they work really well because you have this grandparent relationship. And that's really amazing. And otherwise, what we're seeing develop is really knowledge management systems. If I take from a tomb, for instance, they really have invested a lot in knowledge management systems. And and I think it's very important to have to have the systems and they're using something I wanted also to say about attracting young people is that nuclear industry has been late in digital transformation for lots of reasons. You know, mostly related to safety issues because we didn't want to it was we felt it was difficult to go through approval with our safety authorities. But but now I think I think the nuclear industry has gone through this stage. And now we have a lot of stuff like we did recently a workshop on how we're using some companies are using starting using artificial intelligence, for instance, to analyze data or to do predictive maintenance. So this is quite exciting. And also there was a person who presented the plan to use artificial intelligence for knowledge management to be able to draw from interviews or data and reports in their database and be able to to get some data. And we also have an association which is called expert connect. And so retired people can register to this association. And when there is a question from somebody they can get contacted and offered some consultants, you know, contracts to come and help. And and recently, for instance, there was a retired man and he was called because there was an an issue, not an issue, but some problem to get resolved on a nuclear plant in Spain. And they found in a database that he had been involved in a project in this nuclear plant. So he knew the plan. So they called him to come help them. So I think it's quite interesting because I've been in an IT industry before and the telecom industry. And in the IT industry, when when I was very past 50 years old, I mean, there were pre retirement packages, right? And now in the nuclear industry, I'm older, I feel much better because nobody tells me I'm older, you know, I'm told, I think we're very inclusive, I think, because we need so much experience and I have so many challenges. So I think it was a very respectful industry from that perspective. Most definitely. All right, so we've talked about some challenges of getting diversity into our workforce. So I want to hit on some success stories, right? It's not all challenges. We have had some successes. So I'd like each of us to share a success story related to DNI specifically that's had an impact on you, your organization, you know, larger than that. Just any kind of story you can share with our audience about how DNI initiatives have been successful. Yes, I think I talked about how I think we're very proud about the work that we have done with all the industry and identifying the profiles we needed to hire because it's taken in as three years. So it's called the match program. And that actually was a demand from the French government. In France, we're very government driven. And so they ask the industry to get prepared for the program and to do whatever it takes and that they will support them. So based on this plan, they really worked with created something just created by EDF and the industry, which is called the Université des métiers du nucléaire, so University of Nucléaires, which is a kind of virtual university that gathers all the training programs in France on them. And it's great because they were able to identify where we had holes in our training program and work with the Ministry of Education to create additional programs. So I think this planning that we did and getting ourselves organized, we're all very excited about this. I think it's really great. And the second thing I think which is great is our volunteers, especially young generation, as they go and visit schools because the young people they like to talk to young people and they're very active and committed. So it's wonderful. Yep, yep. That's one thing that NYGN does, going out into the community. So we're organized based on local chapters. We're very much a grassroots organization and so a lot of times it's a chapter led and driven event. And so my personal chapter out of Atlanta we went to basically an arts and craft festival. So there's people selling you know pottery and things for their dog. And right smack in the middle of it we had a pro nuclear booth and we were passing out gummy bears you know with the little stat about you know this nuclear, this little gummy bears the size of a nuclear fuel pellet and it could power your house for so many months and the kids loved it of course because they're getting free gummy bears. And a lot of times their parents were drug over by the children and they would stop and they would actually ask a few questions. It was our first time doing that kind of event at that kind of festival and we really kind of expected some adversity and most people were very supportive. They didn't know a lot and so we got to offer that that background of all the positive benefits of nuclear. But that's something that our chapter led and it really helped develop our members right because when you're leading an event you yourself are growing as a leader right because you're thinking of it from an organizational stance. So NYGN does a great job of doing that kind of training, letting our members get that kind of experience, leading events, public speaking, talking to the public and then the public is benefited as well because they're getting to hear about nuclear energy and receive free gummy bears. Shans, anything to add? Yeah I mean I'm glad that you mentioned leadership there. For me I think working where I work now under the leadership of our director general Bill Magwydd I've experienced what it feels like to have the leadership value diversity and inclusion and kind of put their money where their mouth is in a sense. So I think all but one of our heads of division are female so that's the second layer of management beneath Bill. And you know he's all of those heads of division are impressive women who are skilled and deserve those jobs through their own careers like obviously. But it's so nice to be able to see that you know see that the success of promoting women to leadership positions and then also seeing the gender balance report which is a landmark report that we the NEA released recently seeing actual data in the world. I think that's so powerful. You know I've like I said been in the nuclear industry since I wanted to be in the nuclear industry since I was at school and like been in the nuclear industry for over 10 years now and I just it's I know how I feel as a woman and someone from other minority backgrounds being in this industry and I talk to people I talk to my peers about it my colleagues about it but having that report and having some data it's so powerful it's so useful to be able to say like no look this is actually happening. So yeah like being able to be in an organization where these things are valued. Also we just opened we just started our the nuclear energy agencies chapter for women in nuclear so that is also really nice to see just all the way through the organization like this thing being taken seriously. Definitely. Alright so hopefully everybody's convinced that diversity in the workforce is really important but just in case you're not what are the consequences if we don't embrace DE&I in our workforce? I think the consequences that we will not be able to deliver on our promise. I agree the US we're gonna have such a need for workers you know we can't honestly can't afford to discriminate like it's gonna take everybody and if that's what it takes to force the industry to be diverse then so be it it's gonna take everybody to build these plants to reach our climate goals and I'm excited to see it. Yeah I mean 20 countries I repeat 20 countries more 24 countries now and more signing up every day I'm sure have committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050 you're not gonna get that with the industry in the way that it stands today and the gender balance that the NEA report shows today you're not gonna get it it's not gonna happen and I think the consequences of that is why we're all here at COP this week it's climate change climate breakdown you know we need to really take every aspect of climate solution seriously and I think historically from my perspective gender balance and equality and diversity it's kind of thought of as a bit of a fluffy subject it's not taken seriously particularly in professional spaces it's like let's check this box that we've done this and we've spoken about it we've had a panel event about it or something like this but let's move on to the the real job of building these power plants it's not going to happen without women it's not going to happen without retaining a diverse workforce in the next few decades so yeah all right we've probably got five ten minutes left before we'll open up for questions so again if you have questions be be ready we would love to hear them we'll we'll do a few last ones and then we'll open up to the audience do you have any specific recommendations for DE and I programs or initiatives based on what you've experienced so something specific that the audience could take back and you know maybe really implement and your your day to day whether that's your job a nonprofit a volunteer position I'm actually not going to take a day to date I'm sorry but I think sometimes the problem is larger than us when I say that we don't have a big enough pool of young women coming out of science jobs so I think we have to partner with our education systems to be able to address that and early on I've read you know research and studies that show that you know from the age of 10 women integrate the fact that we will not be as good as men for mathematics for instance I've heard younger and so I think we have this is beyond us I think and and it's a key factor success for us so I think it's very important so we can do something I think I talked about the women in your group how they go and see young women and tell them yeah you can be an engineer actually one thing I've noticed is that people don't understand what an engineer is and very often young women they feel being an engineer is being a geek and playing on your pc and doing games and whatever I definitely do not do that okay yeah so I think it's very important to to explain what is the job and your your some of them are spending their day in front of your computers but most of them don't and I think it's very important they don't understand what kind of jobs but you get to and it's very dominated by the IT industry the I say the imagination yes I was going to say mentorship I think this is I think this is something which you could do and you probably should do at the earliest stage of your career even from when you're at school I think with the internet these days it's a lot easier to get in touch with people I wish I'd known the the strength of having meant of having a good mentor and you can have many mentors at the same time and many different ones throughout your life but I wish I'd known the strength of that from my younger age luckily I did I've had some great mentors throughout my years some of them men but but it's amazing what having that having that support from from daydot can do for you I think you don't have to look for people who are just the top of their fields and inaccessible you know if even someone if you're at school who's in a couple of grades higher than your university who's recently graduated or even looking for a job someone who's just come back from an internship just just try really really hard to find some some people and you'll find like people are at least from my experience I found people are really really willing and open and ready to to be there to support the next generation we're all here like we're we're looking to to expand nuclear to triple that capacity as we've as I've mentioned a few times and I think you'll find that across the industry and across across climate industries as well and if you can't if you struggle to find a mentor by yourself I know that women in nuclear have mentorship schemes NAYG and do join one of these youth groups or nuclear societies and if they don't have a program request that they start a program if you're if your workplace doesn't have a mentorship program you can ask try and set it up I just think it's a really really really powerful tool to have and something that you can just do I was very fortunate when I first started my company I had a very strong female mentor and really took me under her wing and for the first couple years I mean she was the one that I went to for everything we got to know each other you know obviously on a personal level hung out outside of work and I kind of grew with her throughout my my role at that company and I was really really lucky because I know that not a lot of people get that so just like Shaz was saying if you're not getting that at your company do reach out to some of these organizations like when like any YGN if you're not getting at your company you it's so valuable to have and we would love to help any closing remarks before we open it up for questions yes I was thinking about it when you say how important the mentoring was I have to say also take a lot of company trainings on soft skills because very useful and I know for my training I was trained as an engineer and I was very shy and and in a French education program you don't get to ask questions for instance in class because then people think that you haven't understood or you're stupid or whatever and so so I couldn't talk in public I couldn't ask the questions I couldn't you know took me a long time to be able to do it and I took the opportunity of every internal training you know speaking in public interact with others and whatever and I think it's most companies have this type of training so we really have to take that we never have time for training we don't and for ourselves so but we need to take that time these are very useful definitely and also get engaged into nuclear societies yes because they really help develop the soft skills and get visibility on next job opportunities and also being visible to management and so I think there are career accelerators actually but you'll tell me from your experience no they definitely are I mean even if you're going to your vice president to approve uh bringing in lunch you know like getting a catering request he's still seeing you he's still knowing who you are so doing doing things with volunteer organizations above and beyond your job role you never know where it's going to take you and what opportunities and the people you're going to meet and so it's almost like why not you know why why not give yourself every chance of success yeah I just think I might take a bit of a philosophical stance on this which is just try and build a community wherever you are join a community build a community I think there's nothing more valuable than that and in the workplace in your personal lives wherever you go there is such thing a society and you know it's important for us looking to the huge enormous challenge we face trying to prevent climate breakdown we have the strongest thing that we have is each other and so particularly from people from underrepresented communities in the workspace in the career path that we've all chosen especially it is an amazing career it's amazing it's amazing job it's you meet some amazing people and I just think yeah it's super powerful to create and keep a community around you and hopefully that will and to those a few years ahead of us in their careers I hope you don't mind me saying follow me to support the communities that are being and nurture the communities that are being created you know by societies by the young people coming through I think that's important we do it but we can do we have any questions from the audience oh once we're going to get you a mic thank you I'm Heather Moore with the German public broadcaster Deutsche Weller I'm really curious about how people working in fossil fuel industries now can transition into nuclear do you have programs for our target audiences in the U.S. at the moment for what I'm working on do you have programs in place to help funnel people working in coal for example to transition within their communities into nuclear sure as far as like official government run training I'm not sure as a mechanical engineer you know the basics of a power plant are the same except for how you're heating the water right so if I was nuclear and I wanted to go to fossil for some reason my skills would translate very easily I'm still doing the same I'm still maintaining pumps valves heat exchangers and so everything outside of the reactor and the safety side of that would translate very very well so somebody coming from the fossil industry into the nuclear industry really would just need probably their understanding of safety and the nuclear safety culture like really hit a hammered home because it is it's a dramatic shift in thinking when we're doing something we're always thinking okay how is this going to impact other systems and I don't know that other industries necessarily have to think that way all the time and another thing that I had to learn the hard way when I first started was in valor you hit hit on this that you weren't asking questions I was told to ask questions all the time and I actually received coaching in my first six months that I wasn't asking enough questions and so I think that's something again that other industries maybe aren't they don't do that because the safety culture isn't the same as nuclear safety culture and so I ask a lot of questions and I've always asked a lot of questions ever since I received that feedback so to back back to your question I think most you know electrical engineers mechanical engineers welders electricians all of that is going to translate very very easily to nuclear this very detailed aspects of nuclear is anything tied to the reactor I have a little bit to say on this just from my day job on SMRs so there's a new generation of nuclear plants being coming online hopefully soon called small modular reactors they're just mini versions very simplistically mini versions of the large-scale conventional reactors that we have now that we're used to around the world and one of the proposed applications for SMRs is to repower coal sites so that's exchanging the heat source of coal at a traditional coal power well it's existing existing coal sites and taking away the heat source and exchanging it with a small modular reactor or multiple modules of a small modular reactor and I think that will have a lot that's likely to have a lot of benefits retaining a lot of the workforce who worked on that plan or in that community with minimal disruption or retraining required because you know outside of like you like Christy mentioned outside of the heat source side of things outside of the nuclear island everything else at these these plants is not that different it's a steam machine yeah it's a steam machine from the Victorian era really I have to say I think there are lots of examples in the world of countries that have transitioned really well so I'll talk about France because it's my country but in 1973 70% of our electricity was coming from Fossile believe it or not but in 73 the number one oil consumer in France was EDF was our electricity producer and in 20 years we transitioned to less than 10% Fossile fuel and we built 58 reactors so and so all the workforce was transitioned really smoothly from the thermal plants for thermal Fossile plants into the nuclear plants and now it went really well and I remember when we were exchanging with Poland because they were they have the same challenges they have to move from coal to nuclear the EDF shared their expense with with with with operator in Poland and and I think it's really something that can run really smoothly besides you know the neutronics of the plant and probably some safety stuff it's most of the jobs are the same great question anybody else thank you Dr. Charlene Smith breakthrough Institute Washington DC my question is on how you measure success statistically speaking for your educational programs and your training programs that you do have to build human capital in the nuclear industry Val are you going to start so we have metrics of women first woman in a workforce and in different jobs and also metrics in different levels in the organization I think you talked about you know the metrics are different you know depending on if you look at high level jobs so from the metrics I see these ones the one I see so maybe the companies have more internal metrics I'm on the board of one of the orano subsidiaries one thing I thought what's absolutely wonderful is that they have a program to identify pay gaps in the organization and they have a specific budget to compensate for the pay gaps so as a board member every year we get approval for exceptional salary increase of women that have been identified by the processes they have that there's a gender gap so it's really great because they really have proactively seeking these cases and chasing them and they put a budget aside to to compensate them and correct the situation so many it's a priority right now so I think we've seen a lot of creative things inside the companies this is the example I have in mind you have other examples yeah so any YGN my non-profit we do a by annual career survey report so we send that out to all of our members and it's open to anybody in the nuclear industry and it's the same thing we're tracking metrics right so we're asking people what is your gender how old are you how long have you been in the industry were you in industry before and how long so it's trying to understand if we're going back to workforce where is the workforce coming from and what does the workforce need so we also have a lot of questions the standard are you satisfied with your job which ways could your job be improved and so we've been doing that for over a decade now and we trend it every year and of course the survey is always changing and improving but we have seen changes it is going in the right direction we are seeing more diversity it's just not fast enough we'd love to see more great question probably have time for one more if anybody else has one I can just add that I'm not sure how I'm not sure what the success metric measurement is for my organization the nuclear energy agencies programs in this area which is I believe one is called NEST and one is the global forum for nuclear education but like I'd like to repeat again from something I said before which is my agency produce a landmark report on gender balance in the nuclear industry which has a lot of statistics and data from around the world in the nuclear industry specifically focused on gender balance so perhaps not an assessment of the success metrics of the programs that we asked which was your question but maybe a useful data point I think to have a look at the state of play around the world in this area now all right well we appreciate everybody attending and thank you for your questions and we'll make that the end of the session thank you