The award acknowledges students or student organizations in higher learning institutions or military training programs, emphasizing qualities such as passion for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and related careers. Recipients are recognized for active participation in STEM curriculum, encouragement of others in developing STEM skills, engagement in STEM activities with leadership, willingness to share knowledge through mentoring, and inspiration to others through enthusiasm and commitment to pursuing a STEM career.
A press release of the award can be found here.
Each year, the Award for Fundraising/Sustainability recognizes a student chapter for an innovative and successful funding model that provides financial support for its activities or otherwise sustains the student chapter. Such a model could include organizing review sessions prior to exams, soliciting support from local industry sponsors, writing proposals for university or government grants.
The UT Austin AWM Chapter was recognized for successfully fundraising from multiple sources:
Student Government allocates funding to student organizations in order to "help support events and initiatives that improve the student experience, and/or contribute to campus communities."
With this fund, we ordered merchandise to advertise our student organization, especially emphasizing the inclusivity and welcoming nature of our club as well as incorporating UT AWM's beloved mascot, Awmie the Armadillo.
Major League Hacking, along with their partners created the Pizza Fund to support "in-person meetups, workshops, and even mini-hackathons".
We used this fund to host a workshop where our members were taught introductory HTML. Members were also exposed to useful services, such as Github Pages, so that they can have the tools needed to create their own detailed website from scratch.