The Founder Brenda Rombo started Be The Engineer from her experience as a woman in STEM. Being an engineer herself, she noted that there were very few women in STEM careers and they faced almost similar challenges.

She noted that in all organizations she had worked in she was always the only woman in the depart or at most 2. In university she reflected that they were only 7 women in a class of 70 mechanical engineering students.

Be The Engineer started as a blog where Brenda could write her views and experience as a woman in STEM, along the way she started getting requests to mentor and talk to girls in high schools and women in STEM physically. She recalls however that her turnaround point was when one day she got one email form a man who asked if she could mentor her daughter who is interested in STEM and she instantly knew there was indeed a problem and it mainly stemmed from lack of visible role models in STEM. She decide to create a community of women in the industry to come in as role models to young women in the industry or just starting out and girls in primary and high schools.