MEng Student wins Anita Borg Scholarship

Kinga Mrugala

Fourth year MEng. student Kinga Mrugala has been awarded an "Anita Borg" Scholarship. The award was established by Google "to encourage women to excel in computing and technology and become active role models and leaders in the field". Dr Anita Borg (1949-2003) fought to ensure that technology’s impact would be a positive one. In 1997 she founded the Institute for Women and Technology which today bears her name.

Kinga was one of 78 recipients chosen from applicants across N. America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Awards reflected the "strength of each candidate’s academic background and demonstrated leadership". Kinga has already taken part in a "retreat" in Zurich where she was able to meet other winners and participate in workshops, breakout sessions and social activities.

Speaking of the award Kinga said "The application itself was fairly simple, there were just a couple of essay questions. However, since the questions asked for concrete examples, it was important that I was active while studying. The new UCL CS curriculum and the COMP2013 Systems Engineering project with Dr Dean Mohamedally were particularly helpful in getting noticed by the committee. I also participated in hackathons and volunteering activities.

Getting the scholarship was an amazing experience. At the retreat I was able to meet other female computer science students and hear from engineers at Google, which was inspiring. The scholarship also gave me confidence and courage. Thanks to that I applied for a job at Google, as a result I will be joining them in Zurich next summer.

I would really encourage any female engineers to apply for this scholarship next year at www.google.co.uk/anitaborg/emea/index.html . There are also many other opportunities out there – for more information see uclwe.cs.ucl.ac.uk . "