The Mercedes-Benz Social Contribution Committee hosted 11 outstanding university students from the 17th edition of the Mercedes-Benz Mobile Academy programme for a five-day tour of the company's facilities in Sindelfingen, Germany.
The Mobile Academy is one of Mercedes-Benz's signature social contribution activities, which has been running for 10 years since 2014 through an industry-academic agreement with 11 universities in Korea to provide automotive students with the latest technology trends and career direction to help them grow into future automotive industry talent.
Participating students will receive 17 weeks of training over the course of a year, consisting of both basic and advanced courses taught by Mercedes-Benz specialist instructors. They will also have the opportunity to meet and be mentored by current employees in various roles within the Mercedes-Benz network at the Mobile Academy Career Development Workshops.
The visit to the Mercedes-Benz headquarters is the final course in the curriculum of the Mobile Academy, an industry-university cooperation programme for automotive students from 11 universities in Korea, and the Mercedes-Benz Social Contribution Committee selects the best students from each class to visit the German headquarters every year.
The five-day, five-night trip to the German headquarters, which began on 30 June, was attended by 11 outstanding graduates of this year's Mobile Academy, out of a total of 226 students, who had the opportunity to experience Mercedes-Benz's advanced technologies and production processes first-hand and explore their future careers.
The students also had the opportunity to broaden their horizons through a variety of programmes and trips abroad, including a visit to Factory 56 in Sindelfingen, Germany, where they explored the futuristic, carbon-neutral production facilities and state-of-the-art digital processes, a visit to the Classic Centre to experience the craftsmanship-based car preservation and restoration process, and a visit to the Mercedes-Benz Museum to experience the technology and brand heritage of Mercedes-Benz, which has been innovating for more than 130 years.
"After participating in the Mercedes-Benz Mobile Academy programme for a year, my love for the brand has grown a lot, and I am very happy that I was selected as an outstanding student and was able to experience the facilities at the German headquarters first-hand," said Lee Seung-min, a student from Youngnam University of Science and Technology. "When I return to Korea, I will be working in the Mercedes-Benz dealer network and participating in the AET training programme, Mercedes-Benz's programme to train professional mechanics, so I am looking forward to the process and will do my best to contribute to the development of the automotive industry based on this experience."
Since the inception of the Mobile Academy in 2014, the Mercedes-Benz Committee for Social Contribution has provided 162 outstanding students out of a total of 1,319 participating students with the opportunity to experience the Mercedes-Benz headquarters, as well as job placements at dealerships after graduation, thus contributing to the development of the future leaders of the automotive industry.
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