Grace Hopper Celebration Anita Borg Scholarship

Grace Hopper Celebration Anita Borg Scholarship

The AnitaB.org-sponsored scholarship supports attendees of the Grace Hopper Celebration, offering financial aid, mentorship, and networking opportunities. Established to honor computer scientist Anita Borg and cofounder Telle Whitney, the scholarship connects recipients with industry partners such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel Corporation, and Facebook via the annual Grace Hopper Celebration. Recipients have included students and early-career professionals who later worked at organizations like Amazon (company), Apple Inc., Twitter, LinkedIn, and research institutions such as MIT, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Overview

The scholarship was launched as part of AnitaB.org initiatives aligned with events created by Grace Hopper-inspired programming and the Grace Hopper Celebration conference. Operated by AnitaB.org in collaboration with corporate partners including Cisco Systems, Salesforce, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Oracle Corporation, HP Inc., NVIDIA, Dropbox, Uber Technologies, and SAP SE, it targets emerging technologists pursuing careers at firms such as PayPal, Stripe, Square, Inc., Qualcomm, and institutions like National Science Foundation-funded labs and university research groups. The program is associated with complementary awards and efforts like the Abie Awards and community projects coordinated by the AnitaB.org Grace Hopper Celebration Community.

Eligibility and Application

Applicants typically must identify as women or non-binary and be enrolled in or recently graduated from accredited programs at institutions including Harvard University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Yale University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, National University of Singapore, and regional universities across continents. Eligibility mirrors partnerships with employers such as Microsoft Research, Google Research, IBM Research, Facebook AI Research, and labs at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory or Los Alamos National Laboratory. Application components often reference transcripts, résumés, recommendation letters from faculty at universities like Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Toronto, and essays about work related to projects in collaboration with teams at NASA, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Siemens, and Boeing. Applicants interact with platforms used by partners such as LinkedIn, GitHub, Stack Overflow, and learning platforms like Coursera and edX for portfolio demonstrations.

Selection Process and Criteria

Selection committees include representatives from corporate partners such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Intel Labs, NVIDIA Research, Twitter Engineering, and academic partners from MIT CSAIL, Stanford AI Lab, Berkeley AI Research Laboratory, and Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. Committees evaluate technical merit demonstrated through contributions to open-source projects hosted on GitHub, research publications in venues like NeurIPS, ICML, SIGGRAPH, CHI, and ACL, and leadership in student organizations such as ACM, IEEE Computer Society, and regional chapters tied to Women in Technology International. Criteria emphasize demonstrated impact, potential to contribute to communities involved with companies like SpaceX or nonprofits such as Code.org, and alignment with themes promoted by conferences like SXSW Interactive or hackathons sponsored by TechCrunch and Major League Hacking.

Benefits and Support

Recipients receive conference registration for the Grace Hopper Celebration, travel and lodging stipends, and access to career fairs featuring recruiters from Microsoft Careers, Google Careers, Amazon Jobs, Facebook Careers, LinkedIn Talent Solutions, and consulting firms like McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group. Additional benefits include mentorship programs pairing scholars with professionals from Intel Veteran Technical Leaders, IBM Women in Technology, Accenture Women, and networking sessions featuring speakers from DARPA, NOAA, World Economic Forum, and philanthropic partners such as Gates Foundation. Scholars gain exposure to workshops on topics tied to research at Bell Labs, policy discussions involving UNESCO, and industry panels with executives from Cisco, SAP, Oracle, and startup ecosystems represented by Y Combinator and 500 Startups.

Impact and Notable Recipients

The scholarship has influenced career trajectories of recipients who advanced to roles at Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Microsoft Research Redmond, Apple Machine Learning Research, and faculty appointments at University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, University of Washington, and Duke University. Alumni have launched startups funded by firms such as Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, contributed to standards bodies like W3C, and held leadership positions in organizations including ACM, IEEE, and Women Who Code. The program’s visibility has amplified initiatives honoring Anita Borg and Telle Whitney while interfacing with global efforts from entities such as UN Women and regional conferences modeled after the Grace Hopper Celebration India and Grace Hopper Celebration Europe.

Category:Scholarships