BOULDER, Colo., March 13, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and Symantec have awarded $9,000 in seed funds to student-run programs that aim to increase the numbers of women studying computer science and related technology disciplines. The 12 winners of the NCWIT Student Seed Fund each will receive $750 for their projects that recruit, retain, and encourage girls and women in technology through outreach, mentoring, professional development, and affinity group support.
Symantec is the sponsor of the NCWIT Student Seed Fund, which to-date has distributed $34,500 in funding to 56 student-run programs at universities and colleges nationwide. Student Seed Fund initiatives have provided programming workshops, after-school programs, student mentoring, peer support, professional training, and other opportunities to nearly 2,000 elementary, middle-school, high-school, undergraduate, and graduate students.
"Symantec recognizes the business benefits of a diverse technical workforce and we believe women need to be a part of this workforce," said Ellen McLatchey, Director of Global Diversity. "We are proud to support these student-led programs because they generate interest in computing while building a stronger, more diverse talent pipeline."
"We're thrilled with Symantec's leadership in recognizing that student-led initiatives can have huge impact, both for the students who run them and their target audiences," said Lucy Sanders, CEO of NCWIT. "Support for these programs is growing the technical pipeline girl by girl, woman by woman."
Following are the recipients of the NCWIT Student Seed Fund awards:
About NCWIT
The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a non-profit community of change leaders working to increase women's participation in computing and technology. NCWIT helps organizations more effectively recruit, retain, and advance girls and women in K-12 through college education, and from academic to corporate and startup careers. NCWIT is supported by the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, Bank of America, Avaya, Pfizer, Merck, Turner, AT&T, Bloomberg, EMC, Google, Motorola, Qualcomm, Intel, HP, Symantec, and more than 350 universities, companies, non-profits, and government organizations nationwide. Find out more at http://www.ncwit.org.
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About Symantec
Symantec protects the world's information, and is the global leader in security, backup and availability solutions. Its innovative products and services protect people and information in any environment – from the smallest mobile device, to the enterprise data center, to cloud-based systems. Symantec's industry-leading expertise in protecting data, identities and interactions gives its customers confidence in a connected world. More information is available at www.symantec.com or by connecting with Symantec at: http://go.symantec.com/socialmedia.