UNCF Google Scholarship Program

Posted by Emily Nishi, Diversity Program Manager

As part of Google's ongoing commitment to advancing computing and technology, we're pleased to tell you that the United Negro College Fund and Google have partnered to create the UNCF/Google Scholarship Program. We hope this program will encourage students to excel in their studies, inspire them to become role models and leaders, and help remove the financial barriers for African-American students wishing to pursue an engineering degree.

On the strength of candidates' academic background and demonstrated leadership, we'll be awarding $5,000 scholarships. Students must be enrolled in their junior year of undergraduate study at a UNCF Member College or University or at a participating Historically Black College or University (HBCU), and pursuing a Computer Science or Computer Engineering major.

Tell your friends, or apply yourself -- the deadline for applications is Friday, October 6.

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Anita Borg Scholarships now open in Australia

Posted by Neetu Vacin, Global University Programs

For three years, we've sponsored a scholarship program with the Anita Borg Institute for women studying computer science and related fields in the U.S. Now we're expanding this program to Australia, where we're very pleased to offer an opportunity to both undergraduate students and postgraduates, who may apply for AUD$5,000 scholarships.

Tell your friends, or apply yourself -- the AU program deadline is September 15th.

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This year's Anita Borg Scholarship winners

Posted by April Yu and Jennifer Bostrom, University Programs

It's that time of year when we happily announce the winners of the 2006 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship. We're awarding 19 $10,000 scholarships to these outstanding young women -- graduate and undergraduate students who are completing degrees in computer science and related fields -- with our congratulations:

• Brianna Bethel, University of Colorado - Boulder
• G. Ayorkor Mills - Tettey, Carnegie Mellon University
• Gillian Rachael Hayes, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Himabindu Pucha, Purdue University
• Karen Fullam, University of Texas at Austin
• Kristen Walcott, University of Virginia
• Kristina Chodorow, New York University
• Laura Rouse, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Marta Magdalena Luczynska, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Megan Olsen, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Michele Banko, University of Washington
• Neven Abou Gazala, University of Pittsburgh
• Parisa Michelle Tabriz, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Rebecca Nancy Nesson, Harvard University
• Shana Kay Watters, University of Minnesota
• Sharmishtaa Seshamani, Johns Hopkins University
• Soumi Sinha, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Tracy Westeyn, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Vinithra Varadharajan, Carnegie Mellon University

And we also recognize these 28 highly qualified finalists, who will receive $1,000 awards from us:

• Alicia Avelon Permell, Michigan Tech University
• Anagha Mudigonda, Polytechnic University New York
• Anna Tikhonova, University of California, Davis
• Annie (Hsin-Wen) Liu, University of Washington
• Ashima Kapur, Carnegie Mellon University
• Cindy Rubio Gonzalez, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Delphine Nain, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Divya Arora, Princeton University
• Emily Grace Christiansen, University of Minnesota-Morris
• Emily Shen, Stanford University
• Erika Chin, University of Virginia
• Eva Mok, University of California, Berkeley
• Evelyn Mintarno, Stanford University
• Gina Upperman, Rice University
• Hayley Nicole Iben, University of California, Berkeley
• Jiayue He, Princeton University
• Jing Chen, University of Pennsylvania
• Laureen Lam, San Jose State University
• Lingyun Zhang, University of California, San Diego
• Lu Xiao, Pennsylvania State University
• Meeta Sharma Gupta, Harvard University
• Moushumi Sharmin, Marquette University
• Neha Rungta, Brigham Young University
• Rachel Weinstein, Stanford University
• Sunny Consolvo, University of Washington
• Tanya Lee Ann Crenshaw, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Valerie Hajdik, Texas A&M University
• Xiaonan Zhao, Northwestern University

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The 2006 Anita Borg Scholarships

Posted by April Yu, University Programs Team, and Emily Nishi, Diversity Program Manager

The wonderfully-named Dr. Anita Borg (1949 - 2003) was a rebel with a cause: ensuring that technology itself has positive outcomes, and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Today the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology carries on her vision. And because Google shares that passion, we are pleased to sponsor the 2006 Anita Borg Scholarship program. We are inspired by the past scholarship recipients -- and in hopes of finding more, the program is expanded this year to accept applications from students entering their senior year of undergraduate study as well as those enrolled in a graduate program. Last year we awarded 23 scholarships; this year we'd like to do more.

Tell your friends, or apply yourself - the deadline is January 20.

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Women and engineering

Posted by Jen Fitzpatrick, Engineering Director

I've represented Google at many events for women in engineering, and I'm always asked the same thing: "What's it like to work there?" I certainly don't mind discussing the subject, but I often think it would be great if more people could see it for themselves. Well, now you can. We invite you to take a sneak peek inside Google and hear straight from some of our female engineers what life here is really like.

Of course, our goal of recruiting as many gifted female engineers as we can also means encouraging young women who are still in school. So I'd like to issue a hearty congrats to the winners of this year's Anita Borg scholarships.

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It's not rocket science (or maybe it is)

"Though women represent nearly half the U.S labor force and more then half of all undergraduates, just 18% of scientists and engineers employed in industry are women and only about 20% of students graduating with majors in engineering, physics, computer science, and similar fields are women." This may not be surprising news, and that's a problem. But the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology is working on a host of programs that can change these numbers.

Google participates with the Institute to recognize outstanding women students in computer science and technology through the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarships. The Institute has just announced the 2004 winners: eight women who have each won $10,000 scholarships, and 11 more honorees who receive $1,000 scholarships.

We salute the winners. May all their successes inspire lots of other women and girls to pursue their (technical) dreams.

Breda Murphy

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