Fedora Scholarship Program to Proliferate Open Source Technology

Fedora, a Linux-based operating system, is sponsored by Red Hat (News - Alert), the world's most trusted provider of open source technology, and the Fedora Project, is a worldwide community of people who use and build free software from all over the world. They want to encourage the creation and spread of free code and content by collaborating together.

The Fedora Project announced the opening of the 2011 Fedora Scholarship program, an award that recognizes the contributions of college and University students toward the project. It is awarded to one high school senior annually to assist in college or university education. This is the fourth year since this particular scholarship program has taken off.

Jared Smith, Fedora project leader at Red Hat, said that the scholarship is recognition of talent in the young in the pursuit of innovation, and hopes to encourage and foster future technologists to develop and contribute technology openly. He added that the previous three recipients were very proactive in their approach toward open source communities while working toward their degrees, which augured well for the future of open source. It was exciting to think of the immense possibilities that open source would bring in the future.

According to a release, the Fedora Scholarship program furthers Red Hat and the Fedora Project's commitment to helping develop and foster talent in the field of open source software.

All applicants will be evaluated on the quality of their contributions made to Fedora and other free software projects, the amount of time that the applicant has been contributing to Fedora and the references from community members. Recipients will receive $2,000 per year for each of the four years that they attend college or university.