NSF Awards Anita Borg Institute $332,000 for Student Scholarship and Travel Grants for 2009-2011 Grace Hopper Celebrations

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced today it has received a $332,532 National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant. This grant will fund scholarships for undergraduate and graduate level students to participate in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC).

GHC addresses the barriers to the recruitment and retention of under-represented populations in computer science by breaking feelings of isolation, providing networking and mentoring opportunities, showcasing inspirational role models, and fostering professional development. Student attendance at GHC has grown the fastest of any target population, and the number of applications for scholarships has grown exponentially in the past 4 years. GHC will increase its outreach efforts to local communities in order to ensure that a significant proportion of the NSF scholarships go to first-time attendees from under-represented minorities. Multiyear funding will enable ABI to perform a longitudinal evaluation to assess the impact of GHC over several years on scholarship recipients.

“The three-year NSF funding enables ABI to scale the GHC scholarship process and meet increased student demand. We see substantial growth in the number of scholarship applications year over year, with a 76% increase in 2008 applications. NSF support is critical to the ongoing mission of GHC to increase the retention of underrepresented minorities and women in computing,” said Jody Mahoney, Vice President of Business Development at ABI.

NSF has funded scholarships for students to attend GHC since the conference inception in 1994. Past funding has shown a positive impact on scholarship recipients’ intentions to remain in computer science and pursue advanced degrees, decrease feelings of isolations, and increase inspiration and confidence about their career path in computing.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a program of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and is co-presented with the Association for Computing Machinery. For more information visit www.GraceHopper.org.

About the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

The Anita Borg Institute provides resources and programs to help industry, academia, and government recruit, retain, and develop women leaders in high-tech fields, resulting in higher levels of technological innovation. ABI programs serve high-tech women by creating a community and providing tools to help them develop their careers. ABI is a not-for-profit 501(c) 3 charitable organization. ABI Partners include: Google, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Intel, National Science Foundation, NetApp, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Thomson Reuters, CA, Intuit, Amazon, and Genentech. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.