Progress, a provider of infrastructure software, has announced the recipients of the Mary Székely Scholarship for Women in STEM (US) and the Women in Tech Scholarship (Bulgaria), both part of the larger Progress Women in STEM Scholarship series.

Established in 2019, the scholarship series was created to increase the global representation of those who identify as women in the fields of computer science, software engineering, information technology (IT), and/or computer information systems and to ease the burden of educational costs for deserving women studying to pursue careers in STEM fields.

In honor of Mary Székely, one of Progress’ founders and creator of the Progress OpenEdge application development platform, the Progress Software Mary Székely Scholarship for Women in STEM is a 4-year renewable scholarship for Massachusetts residents who identify as women and are planning to major in computer science, software engineering, IT and/or computer information systems.

This year’s recipient, Yiming Fang, is a graduate of the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science, Worcester, MA, and will double major in computer science and business administration at Carnegie Mellon.

A National Honor Society member, Yiming excelled academically and during her high school years was the founder and captain of her school’s first all-girls robotics team. She was also part of project teams that created a mobile app serving the visually impaired and worked to develop a mobile app helping diabetes patients monitor their blood pressure and glucose levels.

Outside of school, Yiming founded a Scratch coding club for third graders and later expanded the scope of the club to become a formal non-profit organization—Free Urban Extracurricular Learning (FUEL). In addition, she participated in VRC Robotics Community Service where she raised funds for the Malala Fund, mentored an elementary school VEX IQ team, the world’s largest robotics competition, and started a VEX mentoring series for middle schoolers. Take a listen.

Expanded in 2022, the Women in Tech Scholarship Program in Bulgaria now includes two new annual scholarships for women in their second, third or fourth year at accredited universities studying computer science, software engineering, IT, and/or computer information systems or similar fields. This year’s recipients are both exemplary students and participants in Europe’s Erasmus+ Youth Exchange program.

Vasilena Krazheva is a computer science major at St. Kliment Ohridski, University of Sofia, and is a graduate of the Plovdiv High School of Mathematics. She has interned at technology companies including Europweb Group, Bisoft, and Orak Engineering. Vasilena also served her community by volunteering to implement Google Suite for Education at the Tsar Ivan Assen II Vocational Secondary School during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring children were able to continue their education in a remote setting.

Tsvetelina Stefanova is computer systems and technologies major at Angel Kanchev University of Ruse. She is a member of the Hall of Fame of the International Linguistics Olympiad, and the winner of the “Student of the Year” National Prize for 2021.

The class of 2022 scholarship recipients also includes Akhila Karanam, the first recipient of the Progress Software Akanksha Scholarship for Women in STEM in India. Akhila is a second-year student at Keshav Memorial Institute of Technology, where she is pursuing a degree in computer science and engineering.

The second annual application process for the Akanksha scholarship will open later this year and recipients will be announced in early 2023.