NAPA Donates $500,000 to TechForce Foundation to Support Automotive Workforce

⭐ PARTNER SPOTLIGHT ⭐ What started as curiosity in her family’s living room would eventually spark a movement to strengthen the STEM pipeline for thousands of students across South Los Angeles. Audrey Thompson, Founder and Executive Director of the Engineer Factory, describes the organization’s impact and how they’ve been able to grow over time: “Engineer Factory’s superpower has been our ability to establish strong, strategic partnerships. We are fortunate to be a part of Community Partners. Our partnership provides us with strong fiscal systems and a business back-end, allowing me to focus on programs and building programmatic relationships. Today, we’ve served more than 10,000 students through in-school, after-school, and summer programs.” Read more about the Engineer Factory in our recent Q&A with Thompson: https://lnkd.in/gusjzfAR Explore how Community Partners nurtures and accelerates ideas into action as a fiscal sponsor: https://lnkd.in/gpdVcr5u #CommunityPartners #LosAngeles #nonprofits #fiscalsponsorship #impact #STEM

Happy Friday! Welcome back to #PiperComm’s weekly round-up of News in the Industry! 🌟 Hardware technology company SkyNano was named the Woman-Owned Business Excellence Recipient at the 2026 Pinnacle Business Awards, the Knoxville Chamber (Knoxville, Tennessee) announced Thursday. The award, sponsored by KaTom Restaurant Supply, Inc., is presented to an outstanding East Tennessee woman-owned business. 🏆 Read more:https://lnkd.in/gzRmNwB5 Explore Oak Ridge helped promote the long-standing Lunch for Literacy event, which promotes literacy in the Oak Ridge community by awarding grants to schools and non-profit literacy projects. The 34th annual event, hosted in partnership by Altrusa of Oak Ridge and Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary, will take place on March 24 at Oak Ridge High School. 📚Learn more and attend: https://lnkd.in/gfy89PNN Eight University of Tennessee System innovators recently took the stage for the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund, with semi-finalists now selected. In its third year, the fund annually awards $250,000 to five UT System innovators with research in anything from complex chemistry, agtech, and early-stage medical devices to commercially available products and SaaS solutions. 🍊 Read more about this year’s presenters: https://lnkd.in/eBtSWESk

This is one of the best ways to get your company name out there! Ace Electronics, Array of Engineers, Fisher House Michigan, Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), Women in Defense Michigan Chapter, Kim Bode

🚗 This is something that deserves a mention... We all know the automotive sector is crucial to the North East. It employs 35 thousand people. But what you might not know is that each year, at the North East Automotive Alliance awards they hand out MASSIVE cheques. Not for the people and companies winning, but for local schools. 🚙 This year, a milestone is reached - over £100 THOUSAND will have been donated to supporting STEM in the region's schools. By the end of tonight, £110 thousand will have been given by the NEAA Awards sponsors and winners since 2018. That is INCREDIBLE! 🚛 This is planting the seeds and watering them for the next generation of workers on the shopfloor, R&D specialists, data scientists, EV innovators. This investment is helping to connect industry with education, inspiring young people to pursue careers in engineering and advanced manufacturing — and ensuring the talent pipeline this sector depends on continues to grow. 🙌 It's a really special community that's doing so much beyond the news headlines. 🚗 🚙 🚛 #northeastengland #business #community #futuretalent Paul Butler, MBA Laura Gage Matt Boyle OBE FREng Stuart McGivern

Great to see initiatives like Berkeley SkyDeck continuing to support founders and students through programs that fuel real innovation. As part of University of California, Berkeley’s Big Give, every contribution helps power programs that support 250+ startups each year, hundreds of students, and the next generation of builders and entrepreneurs. Ecosystems grow when communities invest in founders, education, and innovation infrastructure. Excited to see the continued impact of the SkyDeck community. #BerkeleySkyDeck #BigGive #Startups #Founders #Innovation #UCBerkeley #StartupEcosystem

Looking forward to presenting with Andrea LeFlore "Codifying Dignity: Impact in Ongoing Struggles" at Dignified Futures 2026 - 'Design for Dignity' conference at the Institute of Design (ID), Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Our talk covers a bespoke case management system we built together — replacing a tangle of Google Sheets — around a conviction: people's lives aren't funnels, and the systems that serve them shouldn't measure them like ones. My slides attached, my thinking on why metrics borrowed from business fail both the people and the organizations that serve them, and offering an alternative. Thank you Amy Heymans and Chris McCarthy for the invitation to share this at this year's event! #HumanCenteredDesign #DignifiedFutures #DignifiedFutures2026 #DesignForDignity #SocialImpact #UXDesign #ImpactMeasurement #NonprofitTech

"Passion drives our vehicles, but compassion drives our culture." Read that again. While Mercedes-Benz is busy writing corporate poetry and using their "12 Days of Christmas" program to have children stand next to electric vans for photo ops (which quite frankly sounds like something Epstein at least thought about), they are actively engineering the soul out of their cars and losing billions in the process. This isn't a Corporate Social Responsibility report. It's a masterclass in virtue signaling. It's a blanket woven from buzzwords—"empowering," "accessibility," "sustainability"—designed to distract you from the simple truth: they have lost their way. Let's be clear about what this "compassion" looks like: It's hyping "innovation" that means your car is a rolling computer that can be bricked by a bad software update. It's "empowering future generations" by brainwashing them with EVs in their Christmas programs, conditioning them to accept a silent, sterile, and immasculated automotive future. It's promoting "safety" with a fleet of vehicles that have a documented history of catastrophic battery fires. Their "mission to set the standard" is a mission to make you forget what a real Mercedes-Benz feels like. A car that was once a benchmark of engineering excellence is now a hollowed-out shell chasing government subsidies and ESG scores. You don't give back to the community by selling them a compromised product; you give back by building the best, most reliable, most desirable machine you possibly can. You give back by respecting the heritage that made you an icon, and leaving the next generation with a story that they would actually want to be a part of. Mercedes-Benz USA, your culture isn't driven by compassion; it's driven by fear. Fear of being left behind, fear of not appearing woke enough, and fear of the simple, undeniable truth that the market is rejecting your EV-first strategy. Stop the PR stunts. Start building real cars again. Order a real car today: https://lnkd.in/dDdk6HFJ #Cars #autoindustry #analogrevolution #analogapocalypse #internalcombustion #fastandfurious #forthedrivers #MercedesBenz #CSR #VirtueSignaling #Leadership #CorporateCulture

Motivated Clevelanders deserve real opportunities. At Towards Employment, we equip our participants with the skills to build thriving careers — and what we get, skilled Clevelanders not just job-ready, but life-ready — with careers that provide living wages and real financial stability for their families.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” One of the highlights of 2026 so far has been receiving photos from customers proudly displaying their signage after it arrives. Moments like these are a powerful reminder that a sign can mean far more than we sometimes realize. Recently, the Patriot team has received photos that capture: - A first-time candidate launching their campaign — standing proudly with their family, holding the very first yard sign representing months (or years) of hard work. - A non-profit organization announcing the start of a mission dedicated to supporting a meaningful cause. - A heartfelt collage honoring the life of someone gone too soon. - A home improvement company unveiling a complete rebrand after many years in business — ready to share their new identity and expansion with the community. Pictures humanize products. They remind us that behind every order is a story, a milestone, or a tribute. We’re grateful when our customers share these moments with us, and we hope this trend continues throughout the year.

We’re proud to support the next generation of engineers and technicians 👩🏭👨🔧 As part of our commitment to our local community, we are delighted to give a significant donation to the Engineering and Automotive Technologies department at #Basingstoke College of Technology #BCoT. The £5,000 donation will help to provide essential PPE and modern IT tools for disadvantaged students, as they take their first steps into engineering and automotive careers. We recently met students in the current cohort at a BCoT networking event, where they shared their career ambitions. We’re delighted to play a part in helping young people build the skills, confidence and experience they need for the future. To read more: https://lnkd.in/eYK8ZHFk #InstaVolt #Community #Engineering #Automotive #Skills #Education Shane Munford Connor Phillips Amy Fuller Emily Hawkins