IDEA: A New Initiative to Foster Diversity and Inclusion in the Robotics and Automation Society [Women in Engineering]

In 2023, the Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Women in Engineering (WiE) committee launched a new initiative called
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility
(
IDEA
) to increase the diversity of RAS members attending one of its three flagship conferences
[1]
. Although RAS is among the largest of the IEEE societies, with around 15,000 members, RAS conferences still lack representation from women, young students, and people from some global regions. For example, only 18% of conference attendees are female, 8% are graduate students, and 8% are from underrepresented regions like Region 9 (Latin America).