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Kauffman Foundation Grant to Olin College Creates Award Program Highlighting Student Contributions to Solving Major World Problems
[February 04, 2010]

Kauffman Foundation Grant to Olin College Creates Award Program Highlighting Student Contributions to Solving Major World Problems


KANSAS CITY, Mo., Feb 04, 2010 (ASCRIBE NEWS via COMTEX) -- The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has awarded a grant to Olin College of Engineering to fund an award program highlighting outstanding student contributions to solving the major challenges facing the world today.



The "Extraordinary Stories Student Awards" will be given to students who have completed science and engineering projects that tie directly to the 14 Grand Challenges as outlined by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) at a national summit in March 2009 (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/). The Grand Challenges are a grouping of critical problems in areas such as environment, energy, education and security that must be solved to ensure a sustainable future.

"By awarding students who create innovative ideas to solve world problems, we hope more young people will take on Grand Challenges," said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of advancing innovation at the Kauffman Foundation. "Sharing these creative ideas with the world also might inspire entrepreneurs to turn these innovations into the new business models of tomorrow." Over the next few months, nominations will be solicited from students and recent graduates who have made special contributions toward one of the Grand Challenge problems or areas. Nominations may be in the form of an essay or a video, may come from anywhere in the United States and may be for an individual or group of students ranging from pre-college through graduate school and a few years beyond. The nomination should demonstrate how the work addresses a Grand Challenge problem or area and provide information about the educational context, formal or informal, that enabled or facilitated the work.


The stories collected through this process will be showcased on a blog and at a major summit to be held April 21, 2010, at Wellesley College (http://grandchallengesummit.olin.edu). Co-sponsored by Olin, Wellesley and Babson College, the summit will bring together educators, students and leaders from business and government to explore new ways to educate the next generation of Grand Challenge leaders and to celebrate the efforts of young people working to solve these problems. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra leads the lineup of speakers.

The winners in the student awards program will be selected prior to the April meeting so that high production value videos of their stories can be produced. The actual awards will be given at a special dinner the evening of the April meeting. For more information on the student awards program, visit http://www.grandchallengestories.org .

About the Kauffman Foundation The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation that works to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to grow economies and improve human welfare. Through its research and other initiatives, the Kauffman Foundation aims to open young people's eyes to the possibility of entrepreneurship, promote entrepreneurship education, raise awareness of entrepreneurship-friendly policies and find alternative pathways for the commercialization of new knowledge and technologies. It also works to prepare students to be innovators, entrepreneurs and skilled workers in the 21st century economy through initiatives designed to improve learning in math, engineering, science and technology. Founded by late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman, the Foundation is based in Kansas City, Mo., and has approximately $2 billion in assets. For more information, visit http://www.kauffman.org , and follow @kauffmanfdn on Twitter.

About Olin College Opened in 2002 and located in the Boston suburb of Needham, Mass., Olin College is a four-year undergraduate engineering college with an enrollment of 330 students. Olin offers ABET-accredited Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Engineering with concentration options in Bioengineering, Computing, Materials Science, Systems or Individually Designed majors. Olin's project-based curriculum blends engineering, liberal arts and entrepreneurship and incorporates a strong focus on design.

- - - - Joseph Hunter, Olin College, [email protected], 781-292-2255 ((AScribe - The Public Interest Newswire / http://www.ascribe.org))

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