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Good afternoon everybody! Welcome to the final of this year’s European Sci-Tech Challenge! We’re excited that you’ve come here from all your different countries and looking forward to this great event.
My name is Brad Corson and I’m Chairman of ExxonMobil International Limited, the main sponsor of the Sci-Tech Challenge, which is now in its 5th year.
For those of you who don’t know much about ExxonMobil, we are the largest international energy company. We explore for and produce oil and gas and manufacture and sell petroleum and petrochemical products all over the world. We’re also the world’s leading producer of fuels and lubricants and it’s through that part of our business that we’re a partner of McLaren’s Formula 1 team.
So I’m delighted to welcome you to the McLaren Technology Centre. I’m sure you will agree it is a fitting venue for this year’s event and it’s a fantastic example of what is achievable through excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – or the STEM subjects.
When we first launched the Sci-Tech Challenge with Junior Achievement Young Enterprise we had one main objective – we wanted to encourage more young people across Europe to consider careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Why do we want to do this?
Firstly. Because most of us are scientists and engineers and we know that these careers can be some of the most exciting and rewarding you can find
Secondly, as you’ll know, our world is increasingly dependent on technology. So we’re going to need more scientists and engineers to create the technologies of tomorrow
Thirdly, as an energy company, we’re going to need a lot of scientists and engineers to take over from the generation that are working for us now – and so we’re going to be needing bright, creative minds like yours if we’re going to be successful in the future!
(Brad, if you want to make a personal point/observation, this would be a good place)
So as you spend time here over the next couple of days, I challenge you to ask yourself… is this the kind of place I’d like to work in the future? Because the lessons you learn in the classroom today are giving you the skills and competencies to do just that.