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Girls Day 2017: Inspiring Careers in the Automotive Technology Industry

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This blog was posted on behalf of Guenther Juenger. Guenther is the director of Corporate Affairs for Intel EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and member of the EMEA board of directors. In this role he oversees a staff that manages corporate social responsibility, education, media relations, government and community affairs programs.

 

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany hosted the 16th edition of the Girls ’Day in her private offices.  The Girls' Day project was launched in 2001 to encourage girls to pursue technology professions. In order to reduce reservations and motivate them to consider a career in the STEM, Girls' Day makes the broad field of technology and sciences accessible with first-hand experiences. Meanwhile the Girls' Day has become the world's largest professional orientation project of its kind and the concept seems to go up: more and more trainees in technical trades in industry and crafts are female and the trend is increasing.

To this year's Girls' Day, Intel partnered with the University of Applied Sciences Pforzheim, which particularly shows how interesting and practical technology can be. With Intel’s support, the team built a race car! The "RSP17 Onyx" was designed by machine builders in the third semester at the Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences and their hard work really paid off. Although the girls were a little nervous and shy when the Chancellor approached, their confidence grew as they began talking about the project. The Chancellor spent considerable time at the Intel booth as the girls shared their experiences around building a racing car, showed the chancellor 3-D simulations of the car, and even ran a driving simulation.  The Chancellor’s was impressed the team’s efforts saying, “You have assembled the car all by yourself? Awesome!” (German: “Alles selbst zusammengebaut? Wahnsinn!”)

Girls-Day-Germany-1024x335.png Chancellor Angela Merkel meeting the team and hearing more about their awesome project.

The event was a great opportunity for the girls to reflect on their experience building the race car and showcase their capabilities, and see the opportunities in the world of cars and technology, which are predominately male dominated spaces in Germany.

Girls’ Day 2017 was a great display of our commitment to the Intel® Innovation Generation initiative which leverages the power of our technology, our employee expertise, and our partner ecosystem to catalyze change on one of the biggest challenges of today – closing the global youth skills gap.  We will continue to redefine what it means to be an innovator by expanding who has access to technology skills and experiences and connect them to opportunity while empowering them to solve the world’s greatest challenges.

Learn more about the Intel® Innovation Generation here.