Pooja Umashankar fondly reminisces the moment she was entranced by the thunderous roar of an aircraft ascending into the skies.

Ah, the heroic tale of Pooja Umashankar, the intrepid aircraft maintenance engineering student on a mission to save the skies! From her awe-inspiring childhood encounter with the miracle of flight to her valiant return to Sri Lanka, armed with the noble ambition of tackling the global shortage of maintenance engineers – it’s practically a Hollywood blockbuster in the making. Move over, Top Gun, for Pooja Umashankar is here to show the world that fixing airplanes is the new high-flying adventure.

But wait, what’s this? A shortage of engineers in the aviation industry? Say it ain’t so! Who could have possibly foreseen such a calamity in a field where the demands are as unpredictable as a turbulent flight? It’s almost as if airlines and engineering firms were caught off guard, scrambling to find skilled professionals to keep their planes from falling out of the sky. But fear not, for brave souls like Miss Umashankar are stepping up to the challenge, armed with nothing but determination and a trusty wrench.

And let’s not forget the dire lack of female engineers in this male-dominated industry – a veritable gender imbalance of epic proportions. With fewer than 10% of aerospace and aviation engineers being women, it’s like a throwback to the dark ages of engineering, where damsels in distress were nowhere to be found in the hangars and workshops. But fear not, fair maidens, for Miss Umashankar is here to break the glass ceiling and pave the way for a new era of sky-high heroines. Truly, the skies have never looked brighter!