Women in Innovation: here are the four winners of the Amazon scholarship

For the fourth consecutive year Amazon he assigned scholarship Women in Innovation to four deserving winners. The scholarship is part of the Amazon Community program and has the goal of incentivize e help young women to undertake a course of study in the field of discipline STEM. Let’s find out all the details together.

Women in Innovation, here are the winners

Le winners of the fourth edition of Amazon Women in Innovation I am: Valentina Cristoferi, student of the Computer Engineering course at the Politecnico di Torino; Jihad Founounenrolled in Computer Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano; Elisa Cacace of Computer Engineering at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”; And Giorgia Orofinostudent of Computer Engineering at the University of Cagliari.

This year’s four winners join the nine female students who got the scholarship in previous editions and they are continuing on own course of study with the support of Amazon.

The Amazon scholarship consists of a grant from € 6,000 for the 2021/2022 academic yearwith the possibility of renewal over the next two years. In addition to financially supporting the students, Amazon will provide them with some Amazon managers. The managers, acting as mentors, will help the female students to develop useful skills for future work.

Below we report the stories of the four winners; different stories but united by the passion for scientific subjectsthe determinations and dreaming big.

The winners of the scholarship

From left: Jihad Founoun, Valentina Cristoferi, Giorgia Orofino, Elisa Cacace

• Valentina Cristoferi – Polytechnic of Turin.
  • This student is 19 years old and comes from Lugo, a town in the province of Ravenna. The passion for information technology was born during high school – applied sciences, between studies and TV series on cyber hacking. Determined, curious and ambitious, Valentina Cristoferi alone chose to undertake the Computer Engineering course at the Polytechnic of Turin.
• Jihad Founoun – Milan Polytechnic.
  • The passion for information technology is a “family business” for Jihad Founoun, a twenty-year-old from Monza of Moroccan origins who enrolled in the Computer Engineering course at the Milan Polytechnic thanks also to the encouragement of her developer sister. This young student would like to become a teacher to make IT accessible to more and more people.
• Giorgia Orofino – University of Cagliari
  • Giorgia, 19 years old, born and raised in Cagliari, tenacious as a sportswoman at a competitive level she knows how to be, she is in fact a promise of the Italian canoe polo. Her attitude towards scientific subjects has always been preponderant; then, thanks to the support of her father, an IT engineer, she decided to enroll in the Computer Engineering course at the University of Cagliari and was immediately struck by the “powers” of IT.
• Elisa Cacace – University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
  • Elisa Cacace is 19 years old and lives in Frosinone. The first and official contact with computer science took place at the scientific high school, at the address of applied sciences. For her it was “love at first sight”. This is why you have chosen to attend the Computer Engineering course at the ‘Tor Vergata’ University of Rome. This student hopes that over time the situation will change and that more and more girls decide to undertake STEM degree courses, going beyond stereotypes.

Le mentor

Amazon scholarship winners will be supported by four Amazon mentors: Chiara RubagottiLanguage Engineer, Alexa AI – Natural Understanding who will follow Valentina Cristoferi; Michela De MetrioAWS Account Manager who will follow Jihad Founoun; Letizia Cordeschi, Customer Service Manager who will work alongside Giorgia Orofino; and finally, Elena CeccoliniDiversity Equity and Inclusion Operations Manager for Amazon Logistics, will accompany Elisa Cacace in her studies.

For more information on Women in Innovation, you can consult the official site.