McLaren has unveiled a special one-off Artura supercar, designed to highlight International Women in Engineering Day.
The car’s unique design celebrates one year of McLaren’s partnership with children’s rights charity, Plan International.
Guests attending the Goodwood Festival of Speed will be able to see the custom Artura as part of McLaren’s public display.
The search for female role models
McLaren has also published details of a survey, undertaken by Plan International, examining the attitudes of schoolgirls to engineering careers.
Some 61 percent of those surveyed said they wanted to see more female engineering role models.
A considerable 75 percent of schoolgirls said they are interested in pursuing a science, technology, engineering and maths-based (STEM) career.
However, nearly a quarter (24 percent) said they worry about being good enough to study STEM subjects.
Workshops for future STEM stars
Plan International and McLaren aim to tackle the barriers highlighted in the recent research, and do more to promote STEM careers to girls. McLaren has pledged to host skills-based educational workshops for 1,000 girls by 2025.
The first of these sessions was hosted by McLaren’s Ella Podmore. Having previously completed a degree in materials engineering, Ella joined McLaren as an intern engineer in 2016.
In 2021, Ella was crowned the 2021 Young Woman Engineer of the Year by the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Last year also saw another of McLaren’s female employees, Rachel Brown, provide the inspiration for a Lego mini-figure. As principal development engineer for the Ultimate Series of cars, her miniature recreation was included with the Lego Speed Champions McLaren Elva.
ALSO READ:
