Just one of many cool things about DC is that it hosts thousands (count ‘em!) of NGO’s all in the business of doing good.
Even in this competitive field, one of the most interesting and refreshing of such organizations is Women in Aerospace, or WIA for short. Here’s an excerpt from their website:
Women in Aerospace (WIA) is dedicated to expanding women’s opportunities for leadership and increasing their visibility in the aerospace community. Our membership women and men shares an interest in a broad spectrum of aerospace issues, including human space flight, aviation, remote sensing, satellite communications, robotic space exploration, and the policy issues surrounding these fields.
When it comes to addressing humanity’s 21st-century challenge of living on the real world, hard to come closer to the mark.
Dig deeper, and you’ll find that WIA has a Foundation that does all sorts of good works, including offering scholarships for women wanting to pursue a career in these fields:
The WIA Foundation is pleased to provide scholarships to women interested in a career in the aerospace field to pursue higher education degrees in engineering, math or science. One or more awards will be given each year to a rising junior or senior in college, to be applied during the upcoming academic year.
To be eligible for the WIA Foundation Scholarship, an applicant must be interested in pursuing a career in the aerospace field and be a rising junior or senior working towards a bachelor’s degree in engineering, math or science. An applicant must have completed at least two and a half academic years of full-time college work at the time of application and must be currently enrolled in an accredited college or university in the United States or its territories, and plan to be enrolled in the subsequent academic year. Each applicant must have a college grade point average of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. Applicants must be female of any nationality. Applications will be available on or about November 1 for the subsequent academic year.
Interested? There’s still time, but you’d better focus. This year’s deadline is February 25. You can find more details here. Older readers? You might want to help such a fine effort by making a donation.
It’s easy to be cynical about Washington, D.C., but that snarky framing misses what’s really afoot. Silicon Valley may be putting out apps for your smartphone, but DC is an incubator hatching apps for a better world. These WIA Foundation Fellowships are just one stellar example.