Amanda Smith built up International Women’s Day by speaking at a international drone conference in Switzerland.
Smith represented the UK, and shared a panel with Kevin Young of the Idaho Environmental Coalition, at the sold-out event on the shores of Lake Geneva between the Jura Mountains and the Alps.
She hopes her career journey will inspire other young women to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Smith’s presentation at the Flyability User Conference held in Lausanne, described how she and the team at Sellafield nuclear decommissioning site in Cumbria operate drones to deliver operations safer, faster and more cost-effectively.
“The change I have seen in five years you would not believe,” said Smith. ”We’ve taken the number of drone flights at Sellafield from one flight every six months to 200 flights a year. Who knows where drones could be in another five years’ time, by 2029 we could be seeing fully autonomous flights. I remember when I was a young girl and watching Tomorrow’s World on television and seeing these amazing robots and innovations.”
“It always seemed to be the Japanese who were leading the way. So as a girl I thought these things only happened and were only possible in Japan. Last year we hosted a visit from Japan at Sellafield’s Engineering Centre of Excellence where they came to see us and were amazed at what we were doing. We are at the forefront of drone developments now and it’s super exciting,” said Amanda who would like to see a similar positive change when it comes to inspiring more women in the industry.
“I would like to see more women coming into the profession – women are still few and far between in the drone world and that needs to change, I think we need to engage women and girls earlier in the school years, as early as primary school age, to know that they can do these types of jobs. You don’t need to have a degree to have a career in the drone industry. I am proof of that,” Smith continued.
“You need to understand how things work, have a good grasp of Maths, English and the Sciences and be a good communicator – everything else is about attitude and a willingness to learn.”
The Swiss presentation marked a major month for Smith. She is also looking forward to her first meeting in Birmingham as the first female chair of the national COMIT2Drones organisation which aims to make drone technology a trusted, well-governed and essential tool for UK construction and infrastructure industries. Smith said: “It’s a really good community for sharing learning and supporting each other and I am looking at how we can grow that and reach into wider industries.”
Being a member of the Critical National Infrastructure Working Group for drones will help Smith achieve those aims.
Earlier in the year Smith also presented to 200 attendees in another sector – at an offshore energy event in Aberdeen where the audience was largely from the oil and gas industries. “People were coming up to me afterwards to discuss how we can best share knowledge and support each other,” Smith noted. “We are often fighting the same battles across different industries such as with maintenance backlogs and skills shortages, so how can we support each other better across each other’s industries?”
Smith is keen to see greater use of technologies to support people in their jobs, so it frees them up to concentrate on other tasks that only they can do. “Everything we do with drones at Sellafield is about removing people from harmful environments.” Smith said.
Five years ago Amanda had never even thought about drones. She’d impressed at Sellafield and been promoted through the organisation to coach a team of planners but when the organisation was restructured and the role of coach disappeared she was in danger of not having an obvious home.
Craig Branney, Head of Off Site Developments, wanted to grow Sellafield’s engineering solutions programme at the time and he and his manager Mark Foster knew they wanted someone to lead a new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) team.
“I said I don’t know anything about drones and I’ve never managed a team, but I will give it a go,” said Smith. “They said they would review it in three months. I must have done okay as that was in 2019 and I am still waiting for the review!”
After winning a role at Sellafield there was a sign of the dizzy heights to come when she won Apprentice of The Year.
“I knew I had to do well. While the lads were coming out of school and college aged 16 and 18, I was already married with a 12-month-old daughter and I was also starting to do a college course as well as the job. I had a lot on my plate but I was determined to make a go of it,” Smith noted.
