The Amazon Future Engineer program provides students from underrepresented and underserved communities across the country access to computer science camps and classes. Besada and Hanna, who will attend Rutgers University and NJIT, respectively, will receive $10,000 each a year for four years as they pursue their computer science degrees. In addition, Amazon guarantees them and the ninety-eight other winners a paid internship, including a housing stipend, at its Seattle headquarters the summer after their freshman year of college.
The Amazon Future Engineer program empowers, educates, and trains 10 million students. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average computer science major makes 40% more in lifetime earnings than the average college graduate, as well as nearly three times more than the average high school graduate. Despite this fact, the vast majority of public elementary and high schools in underprivileged or under-represented communities fail to offer computer science.
The Amazon Future Engineer program seeks to provide more than 2,000 schools from the aforementioned communities with Intro to Computer Science and AP Computer Science courses through its partner, curriculum provider Edhesive. Amazon’s funding provides preparatory lessons, tutorials, professional development for teachers, fully sequenced and paced digital curriculum for students, and live online support every day of the week for both teachers and students. The full-year courses inspire, prepare, and propel students to pursue a computer science education. All students participating in this program will also receive a free membership to AWS Educate, which provides them with free access to computing power in the AWS Cloud for their coding projects, as well as content to learn about cloud computing.
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(pictured from left to right: Dr. Mychele Perez, Dr. Joseph Giammarella, Fady Besada,
Abakir Adel Hanna, and D|Fab Academy Supervisor Gregory Simon) |
