Celebrating International Women In Engineering Day With Mercedes-Benz

We have previously discussed Mercedes-Benz’ newfound role in philanthropy, but Mercedes-Benz has been focusing upon the ratio of women in STEM while producing The Best or Nothing for years. 

In November of 2019,  Mercedes-Benz, Mattel and the National Girls Collaborative Project launched “No Limits” on National STEM/STEAM Day; which is an initiative that aims to encourage children to consider hobbies regardless of their stereotype.

Mercedes-Benz teamed up with Mattel to make a Matchbox version of Ewy Rosqvist’s 1962 220 SE Sedan. Ewy Rosqvist was the first woman to compete in and win the Argentina Grand Prix in 1962. Mercedes-Benz and Mattel continued with the National Girls Collaborative Project to build an initiative to give out 50,000 of the models cars to young girls, hoping to instill them with the urge to fight the stereotypes of what girls and boys can do.

In July of 2020, The Mercedes F1 team, and primarily Lewis Hamilton, the race-driver currently representing Mercedes in Formula One, created The Hamilton Commission. This Commission was created after Hamilton saw Mercedes F1 staff photographs and their lack of diversity. The Hamilton Commission goal is to promote diversity in motorsports, “in our organization, just 3% of our workforce identify as belonging to minority ethnic groups and only 12% of our employees are women,” the Mercedes F1 team noted at the time. “This lack of diversity shows that we need to find new approaches to attract talent from many areas of society we do not currently reach.” The Mercedes F1 team did not hesitate to recruit new team members, Mercedes has begun orienting their goals to bring 25% of its new recruits from under-represented groups every year until the end of 2025.    

In November of 2020, Mercedes F1 Team and Lewis Hamilton also announced a new partnership with the Mulberry Schools Trust and launched the Mulberry STEM Academy. Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff (who holds a 33% stake in the Mercedes-AMG® Petronas F1 Team) joined students from the Mulberry Academy of Shoreditch, Mulberry School for Girls and Mulberry UTC virtually during the launch of the Mulberry STEM Academy.

This academy offers extra-curriculars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects for students from 7-years-old to 18. The Mulberry Academy pointedly places students from minority and disadvantaged backgrounds to the frontlines of STEM industries. With the help and encouragement of Hamilton, Wolff, and Mercedes-Benz, there will be new, diverse, generations of engineers and designers.  

In March of 2021, Mercedes began a partnership with the Stemettes to encourage girls, young women and non-binary people to have interest and curiosity for STEM related hobbies. The Stemettes are a social enterprise that aims to support and guide young women and non-binary people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths careers. The Stemettes teamed up with Mercedes F1 engineers on a four-month mentoring program. Through learning workshops, firsthand experiences, guidance and encouragement the Stemettes have worked with more than 50,000 young people aged 5-25 internationally since 2013. 

On January 27th 2022, The Stemettes and Mercedes collaborated again for National Mentoring Month. The collaboration was a livestream over Instagram with educators from Mercedes-Benz for a “‘STEM”azing” chat with viewers.

In May of 2022, rap and pop superstar will.i.am collaborated with Mercedes-Benz called “The Flip”. The Flip is the second major project from will.i.am, which creates a one-time Mercedes-Benz GT 4-Door Coupé with modifications that aim to set the overall expectations of vehicles produced in the future. The role this special GT 4-Door Coupé has is working directly with helping disadvantaged students learn with the “i.am/Angel Foundation”; The i.am/Angel Foundation is will.i.am’s STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) education outreach organization for disadvantaged families and communities.

All activities involved with any usage of “The Flip” will have the i.am/Angel Foundation forging the way to “build a STEAM-ready talent pool that will lift families and communities out of poverty”, according to Mercedes-AMG®. This foundation was created to inspire younger generations of technology creators, “every school has a basketball court, and many have football fields, but only two businesses benefit from these skill sets, and it’s mostly for boys,” will.i.am said in a statement last year about his collaboration with FIRST Robotics and the L.A. school system. “Football is great, but my niece will never play for the NFL. With robotics clubs, boys and girls can learn valuable STEM skills and how to work in teams – knowledge that helps secure college scholarships and, eventually, high-paying jobs.”

In June of 2022, Mercedes-Benz celebrates their global initiative, She’s Mercedes, turning 7 years old! Mercedes-Benz launched this global initiative dedicated to inspiring, connecting and empowering women and their unique success, not to get women to buy more cars. When asked why Mercedes-Benz launched a platform for women in a male-dominated genre, their answer was simple, “because respect and diversity are elementary principles for Mercedes-Benz. And also, because we believe that the power of inspiration can achieve outstanding things, especially when connecting people.” The She’s Mercedes platform created a dialogue for women and their experiences, and fosters female empowerment in all sectors, from entrepreneurs, innovators, artists to engineers. 

In October 2021, three Canadian motorsport athletes, Demi Chalkias, Cherie Storms and Nicole Havrda, piloted the always impressive and powerful Mercedes-AMG® GT4 in an endurance race at California’s Buttonwillow Raceway Park. This teamed was formed under Mercedes-Benz of Canada team with the leadership of former race-car driver Melanie Paterson, coach and mentor.

Nicole Havrda, who is only 16-years-old, has been inputting countless hours training on a racing simulator. Nicole has started her career racing go-karts, where she was named West Coast Kart Club’s Rookie of the Year in 2019, the same year as her first podium finish. Nicole is currently training to compete in Formula 3 competition across North America in 2023 in the open-wheel racing car category. Nicole has been taking the male-dominated field head-on since before the tender age of 16, and plans to double-down on female representation well into her twenties.

Cherie Storms, the first woman to compete in Mazda Club and a three-time Sports Car Club of BC Competitor of the Year Recipient, competes across Canada and the United States in sprint and endurance sportscar racing. When Cherie is not spinning wheels and drifting on the track, she is a mentor dedicated to promote and encourage female drivers.

In June of 2022, Mercedes-Benz of Canada has collaborated with Demi Chalkias for She’s Mercedes. Demi Chalkias, who professionally races a Mercedes-Benz AMG® GT53, won the 2018 GT4 Championship, and was the first woman to win the CASC GT3 Championship in 2020. Demi proclaims that she “lives to show other girls they can succeed in male dominated sports”, and what an inspiration she is!

These courageous and brilliant women are helping pave the way to female empowerment and increasing female representation in male-dominated fields. Mercedes-Benz of Smithtown takes pride in knowing women of all ages can succeed in any subject matter they’re interested in. We are honored to highlight these spectacular women on International Women in Engineering Day, and we cannot wait to see how these lovely women break gender-roles in the future.