When Diana Rose applied for an iRAP International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) Training and Accreditation Grant in 2025, she was looking for an opportunity to build her skills and make a greater impact through her work.
Today, as an iRAP-accredited practitioner and Transportation Engineer with TIMCON Associates in Kenya, she is helping to shape road safety conversations in her organisation and beyond. During the 2026 INWED Grant Kickoff Session, Diana shared her journey with the new cohort of grant recipients, offering practical advice and encouragement drawn from her own experience.
A Turning Point in Her Career
Before discovering iRAP, Diana was transitioning into transportation engineering from a different field and actively seeking opportunities to strengthen her technical expertise.
“I was trying to find something that I could literally do to make me a better engineer in terms of experience,” Diana explained. “Engineering is about impact. You need to make an impact in whatever you’re doing.”
A conversation with her mentor introduced her to iRAP and the concept of Star Rating. At around the same time, applications opened for the 2025 INWED Training and Accreditation Grant.
“I was very curious to know about it,” she said. “I was just lucky that when he had mentioned the whole iRAP process to me, iRAP had just announced the 2025 INWED scholarship and I applied.”
Motivated by Safer Roads in Kenya
Diana’s ambition extended beyond personal career development. She saw the grant as a pathway to bring valuable road safety knowledge back to her workplace and country.
“I was looking at the performance of my country, Kenya,” she said. “We mainly focus on education and enforcement, but there’s usually a gap in terms of safer roads. How do we make our roads safe and ensure that everyone traversing our corridors is safe?”
She was particularly drawn to iRAP’s evidence-based approach to understanding and predicting road risk before crashes occur.
At the time, no one within her organisation held iRAP accreditation.
“If I get this accreditation, it could be a way of introducing new knowledge to our company and eventually apply it in Kenya.”
Navigating the Accreditation Journey
After receiving the grant, Diana immersed herself in the materials the programme provided, including manuals, videos, toolkit resources and fact sheets.
To stay on track, she developed a structured learning schedule and successfully completed the Introduction to iRAP and Star Rating Essentials courses before progressing into the accreditation pathway. She then completed the Coding accreditation followed by Survey, Analysis and Reporting accreditations, using a Kenyan road corridor for her survey project.
Like many learners, she found the journey wasn’t without challenges.
One of the most valuable lessons she learned was the importance of consistency and making time for regular learning.
“If your learning is not consistent, you find yourself spending more time trying to relearn what you had done before,” she explained. “You need to understand every single thing you’re doing.”
She also emphasised a message she repeated several times during her presentation:
“Make the iRAP manuals your friend.”
Diana credited the manuals, fact sheets and support from the iRAP team as critical resources throughout her accreditation journey.
Accreditation Opens New Opportunities
Looking back, Diana says achieving accreditation has transformed both her professional confidence and career opportunities.
“Honestly, a lot of things have changed in my life,” she told participants.
Within her organisation, she has become the go-to person for iRAP-related projects and proposals.
“Every single time they are talking about iRAP, or if we are bidding for a project and they need someone to consult on iRAP matters, I’m usually the first person they come to.”
The global visibility offered through the iRAP Accredited Practitioner Directory has also led to new professional connections.
“I’ve had people reaching out to me from different countries, telling me they would want to have me in their team and help them in their projects.”
Becoming a Voice for Change
Beyond career opportunities, Diana believes the greatest benefit of the programme has been the way it has changed how she thinks about road safety.
Her understanding of road design now focuses more deeply on the needs of vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
“By learning iRAP, are you going to use this in your country to make a difference in your workplace?” she challenged participants.
She is already applying those lessons in Kenya, where efforts are underway to develop a local road assessment approach.
“Right now in our country, Kenya, we are trying to initiate our own KenRAP. I’m excited to apply everything I’ve learned.”
Inspiring the Next Cohort
Addressing the 2026 grant recipients, Diana reminded participants that they had earned a valuable opportunity through a highly competitive process.
iRAP received more than 210 applications for the INWED 2026 programme, with only 32 women selected to participate.
Her advice was simple: stay consistent, ask for help, use the resources available, and focus on understanding the concepts rather than simply earning a certificate.
“You are supposed to understand the idea so that you become the voice of change in your country.”
She concluded with a powerful reminder of why road safety work matters:
“The world we want to live in, safer roads, doesn’t start with a policy from somewhere. It starts with us. It starts with you.”
As Diana’s journey demonstrates, the INWED Training and Accreditation Grant is about much more than professional development. It is about equipping women with the knowledge, skills and confidence to create safer roads, influence decision-making and help save lives in their communities and around the world.
Watch Diana’s presentation below.
