The NCWIT Academic Alliance Seed Fund awards members of NCWIT's Academic Alliance (AA) with start-up funds (up to $15,000 per project) to develop and implement initiatives for recruiting and retaining women in computing and information technology. To-date, 19 AA member organization have received a total of $265,000 over the first six rounds. We thank Microsoft Research for its initial funding of the Seed Fund.

For more information about the NCWIT Academic Alliance and the Seed Fund Award program, contact the AA Program Manager, Kim Kalahar.

APRIL 2010: ANNOUNCING ROUND 6 WINNERS!

Brown University: "Extending, Expanding, and Evaluating the Artemis Program"
PI: Amy Greenwald; Award: $15,000
The Artemis program - a summer day camp for 9th-grade girls, run by undergraduate women from Brown University, that encourages confidence and interest in a computing career- will be extended to create community-use projects and to reach students in the greater Boston area.

SUNY at Albany:"Social Robotics Outreach"
PI: Jennifer Goodall; Award: $15,000
Social Robotics Outreach will use the context of social robotics to deploy hands-on workshops that teach K-12 girls fundamental problem-solving and programming skills, while exposing them to software and hardware platforms that bridge the high school and college levels.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute: "Professional Development & Networking Workshop for High School Teachers of Computer Science"
PI: Barbara Ryder; Award: $15,000
Virginia Tech's program will sponsor a series of annual summer workshops, in coordination with the Computer Science Teachers Association, that provide local K-12 computing teachers with the tools and curricula to strengthen the pipeline of computing students.

For complete program results and status of past Seed Fund rounds, download our Seed Fund Executive Report.