E-commerce giant Amazon is inviting students to learn computer science as part of the Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) program. Registration for the program is open. Interested students can register until December 31. As many as 500 students will be shortlisted to take advantage of this.
AFE has also set up about 70 labs where children learn to code and also to build live projects using physical computing components such as Raspberry PIs and sensors. These labs in combination with digital resources enable schools to experiment with computers and technology. For AFE Scholars, Amazon provides each student with an amount of Rs 1.6 lakh for four years along with Amazonians mentorship and boot camp style courses to build a successful engineering career.
Girls students who have already been admitted to a technical college through a central or state level entrance examination and have a total annual household income of Rs 3 Lakh or less are eligible to apply for the scholarship.
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This is the second year of the program. In its first year of launch, 200 girls from low-income families were supported with scholarships to pursue a computer science degree. This year, the number of benefit recipients has been expanded to 500 students.
“Amazon Future Engineer was launched in India with the aim of democratizing computer science education so that every child has the potential to become creators and not just consumers of technology. Since the launch of AFE, we have worked with our partner organizations to support the systemic integration of computer science education in government schools in multiple states,” said Anita Kumar, Head – Amazon in the Community, CSR India & APAC.
The learning is also available in local languages, curated curriculum for schools, courses for teachers in CS, an extra person to teach CS and bridge infrastructure gaps where possible, Amazon claims.
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Aside from India, the AFE program has supported computer science education for more than one million children and young adults from underrepresented communities in the US, UK, France and Canada.
AFE also empowers educators to teach computer science in a more engaging way and build 21st century skills in their students. To facilitate this, AFE, in partnership with various government agencies and non-profit organizations, provides training and coding courses to educators who want to bring computer science to their classrooms.
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