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36th Bertha Benz Lecture and Prize Award
On 25 July 2019, Dr. Mechtild Rössler, Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre delivered a keynote speech at the 36th Bertha Benz Lecture and Prize Award held in Heidelberg, Germany.
Bertha Benz Lecture and Prize Award brings together female leaders from a wide range of fields to speak on socially-relevant topics. This event was established in 1987 by the Daimler and Benz Foundation in honor of the innovative energy, visionary spirit and determination that Bertha Benz (1849-1944) demonstrated.
Bertha Benz was a German automotive pioneer. On 5 August 1888, she became the first person to drive an automobile over a long distance, rigorously field testing the patent Motorwagen, inventing brake pads and solving several engineering issues during the 65 mile trip*. As a result, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen got worldwide attention, making the company get its first sales.
The Benz Foundation awards the €10,000 to a young female engineering student whose dissertation holds the promise of future societal benefits. For its 36th Edition, the prize was awarded to Dr Almut Albiez, for her dissertation on "Mechanical characterization and study of the deformation behavior of high-strength structures with 3D microarchitecture".
Mechtild Rössler, Director of the World Heritage Centre at the Benz Foundation together with the winner of the Foundation's Prize 2019 in the car that Bertha Benz was driving in 1888, the first woman ever to drive.
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*Robertson, Patrick (2011), Robertson's Book of Firsts: Who Did What for the First Time, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, p. 91, ISBN 9781608197385, retrieved 28 May 2015
