AWARD

The award is a $3000 scholarship for one academic year ($1500 for Fall semester and $1500 for Spring semester).

BACKGROUND

Don’s career has spanned 20+ years in the mobile phone industry since graduating from Montana State University. During those 20 years he watched the mobile phone evolve from a device that could simply make phone calls while on the move to what is quite possibly now the most used computer that a person owns. People covet and use their “smartphones” so much because there is a large and diverse development community that has discovered how to provide friendly and well-designed mobile applications. These mobile applications provide a window into “big data”. For example, users love to document their life through pictures and to share those pictures with their friends. This is easily facilitated with a smartphone’s camera and brilliantly designed mobile applications such as Instagram. Instagram helps define “big data” by seamlessly handling millions of photo uploads per day.

ELIGIBILITY

Recipients must be undergraduate Computer Science juniors or seniors with at least two semesters left before graduation. Students must be enrolled full-time with an overall grade point average of 3.0 or greater. 

PREFERENCES

Preference shall be given to students who

  • Demonstrate an interest in mobile application development.
  • Graduated from a Montana high school.
  • Completed an internship at a company that develops mobile applications for use on smartphones.
  • Carry a GPA of 3.25 or greater.

APPLICATION ESSAY

The essay should address the following areas:

  • Past or present mobile application development experience.
  • Future plans to contribute to the mobile application development community.
  • Future entrepreneurial ambitions.