Katy Deacon CEng FIET

She/her
Managing Director of Towards Belonging Ltd
Towards Belonging Limited

Award category:

Science, Engineering, Technology, Property and Construction

Katy Deacon is a Chartered Electrical Engineer, a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering Technology (IET), a wife and a mother of two children.

Katy’s career is an example of tenacity, resilience and determination. She started her career as an avionic apprentice at British Airways, then she developed her skills to be an Electrical Engineer, an Energy Engineer and the information governance manager and Data Protection Officer at Kirklees Council.

Throughout her working life, she has been the recipient of many awards, including:
• the IIE Mary George Memorial Prize, awarded to an outstanding UK engineering apprentice
• the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year award
• the NICEIC Energy Efficiency Product of the Year
• the WES Karen Burt Award for the most outstanding newly Chartered Woman Engineer of the Year.

She enjoyed designing and project managing the installation of renewable energy systems and managing building energy management systems until her MS symptoms started in 2011. She then changed her focus to advance her management skills and develop her experience in information governance and cyber security.

After 12 years in a wheelchair, living with the difficulties posed by lack of understanding from engineers in how to build inclusive and accessible environments, Katy runs her own business, Towards Belonging Limited. Towards Belonging aims to bridge the gap between the disabled and engineering communities.

Engineers often say they don’t know what disabled people need. Disabled people often say they never speak to engineers to let them know how their designs could be better. Towards Belonging speaks to engineers about ways to make their designs more accessible. It also brings the voice of disabled people into the conversation with engineers to improve the understanding of engineers on the importance of designing a world for everyone.

To help this aim expand, Katy is a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Aston and Huddersfield Universities, specialising in Inclusive Engineering Design. She is also a Vice President of the Institute of Engineering and Technology where she chairs the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Board, helping the IET to lead the way within the engineering and technology industries.

I love the Disability Power celebrations and all they represent! Disabled people are creative, innovative and ingenious in the ways that they can solve problems. We add perspective, we add diversity and we add value. Disability is a fact of life, and we should all celebrate Our successes!

Q&A

Katy Deacon CEng FIET
Sometimes, being in a job can be very overwhelming. That is normal for everyone, disabled or not. Just take your time, keep talking to people and enjoy your successes each day – even when that’s just getting out of bed.
Through my volunteering work at the IET, I have raised the profile of disability and highlighted the need to have disability and all other special characteristics to be better understood within the engineering community. The IET now has an EDI board and a disabled members network because of my Advocacy work. I speak to organisations about disability both hidden and visible. I believe it’s important to celebrate the skills, knowledge and experience which disabled individuals bring to a workplace. It is also very important that managers and peers understand how best to interact and support their disabled colleagues. This is the work I do with Towards Belonging Limited.
I aspire to help the engineering industry understand how to make all environments accessible and inclusive
I love going for a push around the coutryside with my family. In the summer I really love going to music concerts and enjoying the skills and talents of the musicians on the stage.
Being with my family and going on holiday to explore new places brings me great joy. It’s even better if those places are accessible and inclusive!
Dogs all the way!
I would like to help educate the people who are not yet disabled that disabled people have real value and can contribute brilliantly if society would be more inclusive and accessible. Disability can happen to everyone.
I think it starts right at the top. Legislation needs to be improved to ensure disabled people are always considered, even down to having BSL interpreters alongside ministers whenever they are giving a statement. House building needs to be improved and the regulations around these activities, so that every home that is built is accessible. Adjustments made after the house is complete are much more expensive than designing in accessible features. We need to improve schools so that every school built is accessible and children with disabilities are taught with inclusion in mind. The education system needs to be improved, so that all children understand that disabilities are part of everyday life, not something that happens to someone else. Children need to be taught about inclusion within their every day lives. The health service needs to be improved, so that the health model of disability is not the first thought of people working within the health service. The social model of disability and the inclusion model should be taught and utilised throughout.

Areas of expertise

Accessibility, Business, Cross Sector, Disability Advocacy, Education, Engineering

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