Samsung awarded its first place $20,000 scholarship to Aditiya Suri, an 11th grader at Walton High School in Marietta, GA. Suri was one of a few high school students to attend Samsung's annual Mobile App Academy, where he designed the app "Mobi Sense," a tool to facilitate communication for those with visual, vocal, or auditory impairment.
High school students who are in the 11th or 12th grade have the opportunity to become App Developers through a summer coding program sponsored by Samsung Electronics. In addition to providing a combination of useful curriculum and technology, Samsung also donates a total of $35,000 in scholarships to participating high school students, such as Suri.
Forecasting the boom in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)-related industries, which are expected to add 8.5 million new jobs by 2018, Samsung established this program four years ago to help students gain more insight into STEM fields. By providing high school students with the knowledge and skill sets to pursue varied future career paths, the program offers valuable experience to those offered admission.
Although over 1,100 11th and 12th grade American students apply to the Samsung Mobile App Academy program, only 360 students are accepted. Due to the program's rigor and limited spots, only top-performing students are typically admitted. Held at top-ranked engineering universities, the program gives students the opportunity to study at University of Miami, Rice University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), Rutgers University, or University of Maryland.
Provided with Samsung Galaxy Note tablets, students are enabled to each build, animate, and market a customized app. These apps can focus on different world issues, including those involving health, education, environmental sustainability, or community investment. Furthermore, Samsung engineers, who are highly knowledgeable in the fields of STEM, will aid the students when creating their apps.
Upon completion of the program, students also have the option of entering to win one of the five scholarships, which sum up to $35,000 in total. Winners will be selected based on judges' assessments of each student's app concept.
Although the 2015 summer program is well underway and applications are closed, qualifying students are encouraged to apply for next summer's session. If interested in obtaining more details on the program, please visit: https://www.scholastic.com/samsungacademy/index.aspx.