"There is an Educating Engineering Leaders conference that will be held in September 9-10 and we need someone from the committee at Imperial College London to represent Robogals. You will be provided help with the presentation and posters" - that was the outline of the email that Sonya, President of the Robogals Imperial College chapter, circulated around the committee members. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) all of the committee members except myself were overseas during that period! So I decided to volunteer at the conference.

With some help and a bit of a push from Sonya, I managed to complete a presentation fit not only for engineering educators from around the world such as Daniel Hastings, Dean of Engineering Undergraduate studies at MIT, but also for royalty. Yes, royalty. Although I was initially told that the Duke of Kent will not have time to stop by for our Robogals stint, His Royal Highness did end up coming around. And guess what? I had only two minutes notice before he actually came over to my table. Luckily, I had a lecturer nearby who informed me about the etiquette in addressing the Duke of Kent.

Presenting our work to the Duke of Kent was a nerve wracking yet a very pleasant experience. His Royal Highness took great interest in Robogals' activities since he strongly supports the need for more girls in the science, engineering and technology (SET) sectors. His Royal Highness also wished us great success for Robogals.

Besides the Duke of Kent, many engineering educators were very eager to know about our activities. They were all extremely encouraging and appreciative of what we have done, and what we plan to do in the future. One interesting point that arose while speaking to the Engineering leaders is the measurement of success for Robogals. Engineers being engineers, they wanted some statistics about the success rate (number of girls being motivated to go into SET after taking part in Robogals lessons). As a relatively new chapter, we had no current statistics to show and hence we have taken this message on board by getting feedback from the students after our lessons.

Presenting at this conference was a rewarding experience - not only did it allow me to speak to royalty and some of the most talented engineering leaders in the world, it also helped me to develop my soft skills and boost my confidence. I think this is one of the best things about being part of Robogals - having the opportunity to do things I would not otherwise had the chance to do, and talking to people in industry, which gives me a more cohesive view of the engineering world and its unique conditions.