National Center for Women and IT Accepting Grant Proposals for Middle School Outreach Programs
The National Center
for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) is now accepting
proposals for its 2014 NCWIT AspireIT program.
The NCWIT AspireIT program provides up to $3,000 in funding for
tech-related outreach programs, such as after-school programs, summer
camps, clubs, or weekend conferences, aimed at middle school girls. The
program uses a "near-peer" approach that matches middle school girls
with tech-savvy high school and college-aged women. According to
information on the NCWIT AspireIT site, the goal of the program is to
provide middle school girls with "a positive, sustained experience of
learning and creating computing alongside their peers in high school
and college."
To be part of the AspireIT program, the high school and college
participants must be recipients of the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing, an award
for high school girls who have demonstrated computing and IT aptitude,
leadership ability, strong academic history, and plans for
post-secondary education. The NCWIT AspireIT grants are open to Award
for Aspirations in Computing recipients working in partnership with
NCWIT Academic
Alliance or K-12 Alliance member organizations.
In 2013, AspireIT's pilot year, NCWIT granted more than $100,000 to 24 AspireIT programs in 15 states. More than 800
girls participated in the programs.
The 2013 programs included:
- Girl Scouts of the USA's Digital Girls program that offered
weekend
workshop and summer camps in programming and robotics;
- FIONA (Future Innovators of New Albany), which taught programming
to
students in New Albany - Plain Local Schools; and
- GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science), a week-long
summer camp
offered at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
For 2014, NCWIT has launched a fundraising campaign to support 30
sites
and serve 1,000 more middle school girls. Donation options begin at
$10, and Google is matching donations up to $150,000. Fundraising is
being handled through razoo.com.
The AspireIT grant application deadline is January 24, 2014, and
grant
recipients will be announced on February 7. Further information about
the NCWIT AspireIT program and detailed application instructions can be
found at ncwit.org/aspireit.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].