The Ford Freedom Award scholar is an African American who has excelled on a national or international level in their field. The scholar serves as a living legacy, carrying forth high ideals, and serving as inspiration for a new generation.
Take Laura Weidman Powers, who was a graduate student, studying youth development and the arts when someone suggested to her in 2009 that she apply for an internship at a tech company.
“I did it and fell in love with it,” Powers said.
From there she discovered that technology is an industry that encompasses everything that you do. She also discovered that there were few women and people of color studying or working in the field.
Seeing the need for action, Powers started CODE2040 in 2012, an organization that works in multiple ways to connect college students to high-demand tech jobs.
The organization helps to provide fellowship opportunities in Silicon Valley for Blacks and Latinos in engineering. CODE2040 takes its name from the year when ethnic minorities are expected to represent the majority of the U.S. population. The organization is working to ensure multicultural groups are trained to fill the growing number of STEM-related jobs. She named it 2040 to mark the year that census data project people of color will be in the majority in America.
With hard work and determination, the company has grown from one person, that being her in 2012, to 15 people today, and the number of fellows in a complex career program has grown from five in 2012 to 35 this summer.
Powers’ work at CODE2040 earned her this year’s recognition as the Ford Freedom Award Scholar.
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