Drive the Future: How Arm and Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team Empowered Austin’s Next Generation
The United States Grand Prix race week in Austin, Texas, carries a special pulse every year, but this time the energy began early. On 16th October, inside a bright event hall Ann Richards School For Young Women Leaders, more than a hundred students had a special look at the iconic Aston Martin racing colours beside the Arm logo.
The occasion was Driving the Future: Accelerating Careers in STEM, AI and Motorsport, hosted by Arm and the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team. The event forms part of the Equity in Action partnership between Arm and Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team, a joint effort to widen access to STEM careers and make inclusion an everyday part of innovation.
For Arm specifically, Austin offered the ideal location: a global engineering and technology hub for the company among a vibrant community driven by creativity and curiosity. The purpose of Driving the Future event was to show that the future of technology and motorsport belongs to those willing to shape it.
Leadership and Mentorship in Action
From Arm, Ami Badani (Chief Marketing Officer), Dipti Vachani (SVP and GM of the Automotive Business), and Tamika Curry Smith (SVP and Chief DEI Officer) joined students for discussions and talks throughout the day, alongside Arm engineers and graduates who volunteered as mentors. Their participation signalled that progress in technology depends on people as much as the latest products.
Motor enthusiast, content creator, and STEM advocate Christina Roki also attended both sessions. Roki breaks down car mechanics and performance technology into clear, hands-on lessons that empower women to pursue STEM, with her videos reaching nearly five million followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Morning Highlights: High-School Program
The morning session welcomed around 120 students, including a group from the Ann Richards School. The morning began with Arm representatives speaking about how the chips and software designed by engineers today shape how people learn, create, and communicate tomorrow.
Tamika Curry Smith led a lively discussion featuring Christina Roki, Tina Hausmann (a Swiss racing driver from the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team’s F1 Academy Program), Ceileidh Siegel (a senior leader at Amazon Web Services known for driving innovation through cloud technology), and Ali Jensen (an engineering student at the University of Texas and Ann Richards alumni).
The conversation revolved around resilience, confidence, and curiosity. Hausmann called resilience “a skill you have to learn and build up, it’s the difference between giving up and continuing.” Jensen reflected on belonging, noting she felt “most out of place when I tried to fit into a mould that wasn’t me.” Siegel advised students to “be comfortable getting uncomfortable,” while Roki urged them to “get excited to fail – that’s how you learn.”
Afterward, students joined small group mentoring sessions with experts from Arm, Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team, and AWS before taking part in an Arm Education workshop that turned ideas about AI and technology into hands-on exploration.
Evening Highlights: University Session
In the evening, 45 students from local universities, including the University of Texas Longhorn Racing Teams, continued the momentum. The panel, titled “How technical skills, resilience, and representation intersect in building high-performance careers — on the track, in the garage, and online”, featured Jessica Hawkins (a professional racing driver and Driver Ambassador for the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team), Gemma Lawrence (a Senior Trackside Support Engineer at Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team), Dipti Vachani, and Christina Roki.
The discussion highlighted how AI, data, and teamwork are redefining performance. Hawkins described how simulators and wearable sensors now mirror the car itself: “At first it felt nothing like driving, until I realized it was exactly like driving.”
Speaking about the rapid growth of AI, Vachani reminded students that adaptability is their greatest asset: “AI is accelerating everything right now. You’re entering the industry at a time when your knowledge already has value, but it will evolve faster than ever, and so must you.”
Lawrence highlighted collaboration, calling resilience “a team game,” while Roki pointed to adaptability as the defining skill in an AI-accelerating world. Speaking about resilience, Hawkins said: “Everyone makes mistakes; the difference is how you recover. It’s okay to be disappointed, but it’s how you pick yourself up and go again that defines you.”
More Than a Race Week
Throughout the day, the partnership between Arm and Aston Martin Aramco Formula One® Team turned race-week excitement into something lasting. Students were left with inspiration and a tangible next step through access to Arm’s Talent Pool, and a pathway to future learning and careers in STEM.
The United States Grand Prix weekend is known for its speed and spectacle, but this event focused on something just as powerful: connecting young people with engineers, racers, and technologists who are shaping the future of mobility and computing.
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