In this episode of the Guy Osmond podcast, Guy welcomes Katie Deacon, a Chartered Electrical Engineer and the founder of 'Towards Belonging Limited.'

Katie shares her mission to bridge the gap between the disabled community and the technical, engineering, and architectural sectors. She discusses her various roles, including her work as a visiting professor at the University of Huddersfield and Aston University and vice president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

The conversation covers the importance of inclusive design, the challenges disabled individuals face, and the potential of AI and technology in creating more accessible environments. Tune in to learn about the critical need for accessibility in engineering and the exciting innovations in this field.

Katy's Bio

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 a great example of tenacity, resilience and determination. She started her career as an avionic apprentice at British Airways, gaining her first-class honours degree in Air Transport Engineering from City University, London and the IIE Mary George Memorial Prize, awarded to an outstanding engineering apprentice working in the UK. 

Difficulties in the aviation industry caused by 9/11 resulted in Katy moving her skills and knowledge to focus on electrical design in buildings. She won the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year award in 2006. After completing her master’s degree in Advanced Engineering from Loughborough University, she became a Chartered Engineer and adjusted her career to focus on renewables and low carbon buildings. 

Her development of the Kirklees and Yorkshire Forward Renewable Energy Toolkit won the NICEIC Energy Efficiency Product of the Year. In the same year, Katy won 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 she decided to expand her experience in management and leadership. She then changed her focus to advance her management skills, become a leader within a large organisation and develop her experience in information governance and cyber security.

In 2011 she started displaying serious symptoms which were diagnosed in 2012 as multiple sclerosis. After years in a wheelchair, living with the difficulties posed by lack of understanding from engineers and architects in how to build inclusive and accessible environments, Katy now runs her own business Towards Belonging Limited. 

Towards Belonging Limited bridges the gap between the disabled community and the engineering community, improving inclusive engineering design implementation, enabling the disabled community to share their experiences of inaccessible spaces and helping engineers to understand the importance of designing for everyone.

Katy is a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Aston University and the University of Huddersfield, 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 for inclusion within the engineering and technology industries.