Google last week announced that applications are now open for its RISE (Roots in Science and Engineering) Awards.
The awards are aimed at promoting and supporting education initiatives in two areas: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) and Computer Science (CS). Google grants awards of $5,000 to $25,000 to organisations around the world working with K-12 and university students in these fields.
Roxana Shirkhoda who is a K-12 Education Outreach Specialist at the technology giant says that the RISE Awards have expanded to include applicants from Latin America and the Asia Pacific region, bringing the total to six continents (including Africa) and 243 countries.
All eligible nations are listed on the Google website.
In the statement, she said: “Our community welcomed more than two dozen organizations from around the world, from Denmark to Uganda and California to Romania. The RISE grants have helped these groups to scale their reach by allowing for more scholarship recipients, to deepen their impact by providing hands on robotics kits, and to ultimately inspire their students by creating a community for CS outreach.”
With the growing interest in techno-related jobs and businesses, the awards are a commendable effort from Google and will go a long way into encouraging and motivating the next generation of computer scientists across Africa and the world.
The awards take place once a year.
