AFBE-UK Cofounder Dr Ollie Folayan recognised in King Charles III First New Year’s Honours

We are delighted to announce that our Co-Founder Dr Ollie Folayan has been awarded an MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his contribution to Diversity, Inclusion and Equality in Engineering. Ollie Folayan is Head of Process at Optimus Plus (Aberdeen) Ltd an integrated engineering consultancy and project delivery company. Ollie is also a visiting professor at University of Dundee Scotland and sits on various advisory groups notable on the diversity steering committee of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

AFBE-UK was co-founded by Dr Ollie Folayan and Dr Nike Folayan 15 years ago and through it there has been tremendous growth in the EDI space for unrepresented communities in Engineering. Ollie is an active diversity and inclusion champion. He is a pioneer in engaging leaders within the Engineering, Energy and defence organisations to consider inclusion within their organisational strategies as key to increasing innovation and creativity. He is an expert and thought leader on Equality Diversity and Inclusion matters and has developed many learning tools and toolkits to support organisations on their diversity journey.

Ollie is a leading voice and advocates for better representation of engineers from under-represented groups. AFBE-UK has supported 20000 beneficiaries of individuals seeking to work in engineering and engineering related subjects and has a membership of over 2500 individual members with 70 corporate members

Dr Folayan, who co-founded the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers UK (AFBE-UK) in 2007, received the gong for services to equality, diversity and inclusion in engineering.

Speaking about being awarded his MBE Dr Ollie Folayan said: “I feel incredibly honoured to have been given this recognition. When my sister and I set out in 2007 to set up the AFBE-UK, we never imagined that so many people would join us on the journey and that so many would benefit. This recognition is for everyone in the AFBE-UK family who works day in day out to make a difference in our community. I want to thank our partners, allies and enablers. I especially want to thank my wife Elizabeth who was there from day one. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without her support.”

In 2011 the Scottish arm of AFBE-UK was inaugurated in Aberdeen with the launch of AFBE-UK Scotland. Since then, it has supported thousands of young people with career aspirations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) though a range of mentoring programmes.

Of Dr Ollies MBE honour Dr Nike Folayan had this to say “My congratulations to Dr Ollie Folayan MBE who has worked tirelessly and sacrificially for 15 years in spite of the many challenges we have faced as a collective and as an individual trying to shift the dial. Without Ollie’s sacrifice and initiative, AFBE would not be what it is today”

In October last year AFBE-UK Scotland signed a fiveyear partnership with Aberdeen University’s school of engineering to support its diversity and inclusion strategy.

The university joined big names including the RAF, Mercedes Formula 1 motor racing team, energy giant SSE and Subsea 7 in partnering with AFBE-UK.

About us

AFBE-UK provides support and promotes higher achievements in Education and Engineering particularly among students and professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds. AFBEUK was founded in 2007 in London as a network of engineers who enjoy what they do, seek to engage the industry and make a positive contribution to the community. These goals are achieved through our mentoring programmes, seminars, workshops and social events. AFBE-UK works to increase the number of ethnic minority people who pursue a career and have successful careers within the engineering industry. We promote diversity in engineering and technology through our programmes and activities which are led by exceptional professionals and leaders in the Engineering industry and are designed to bring about meaningful change, sustainable growth and development and a lasting positive impact to the UK. To find out more about AFBE-UK and the work we do visit our websites www.afbe.org.uk and www.afbescotland.org