GRANTS

NBC ENTITIES ISSUE $225K IN GRANTS TO 6 DFW NONPROFITS

NBC 5, Telemundo 39, and the NBCUniversal Foundation have issued a total of $225,000 in grants to six Dallas-Fort Worth nonprofit organizations as part of the first Project Innovation grant challenge.

The winners were recognized for outstanding programs that leverage technology to solve problems we face every day in the areas of civic engagement, skills for the digital economy, and Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) and Science Technology Engineering Art & Math (STEAM) programming, NBC 5 said. Project Innovation is a program of NBCUniversal Foundation and NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations — a division of NBCUniversal. The new grant challenge was launched in January by NBC and Telemundo-owned stations in 11 markets, including DFW.

Here are the recipents: Junior Players Guild, $59,080; Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas, $50,000, Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity Inc., $50,000; Meals on Wheels Inc. of Tarrant County, $33,920; The Artist Outreach Inc., $20,000; and Solar Car Challenge Foundation, $12,000.

To find out more, read here.

INSURANCE INDUSTRY GROUP AWARDS $473K IN COMMUNITY GRANTS

Community grants totalling $473,000 have been awarded to 24 nonprofit organizations by the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation Southeast Division.

The Community Grants Program is supported by insurance and business communities in Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta, and is funded, in part, by events held throughout the year.

This year, the nonprofits received their grant checks April 9 at the annual IICF Southeast Division Grant Reception that was hosted in Addison at the offices of Zurich North America.

To see the list of recipients, go here.

DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES WORKS THROUGH GRANT 

Using a grant from the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program, the Dallas Museum of Art has acquired several artworks from the Dallas Art Fair for the third year in a row, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The grant is made possible through funding from the foundation along with private donors. The grant has triple in size since 2016 from $50,000 to $150,000, the Morning News said.

Here are the winners, according to the newspaper: Geraldo de Barros, a Brazilian abstract photographer; Harlem-based interdisciplinary artist Sanford Biggers; Alicia Henry, a multimedia artist; imaginary landscape painter Shara Hughes; Tony Lewis, a Chicago artist known for large black and white wall drawings; and abstract sculptors Matthew Ronay and Brie Ruais.

DALLAS OPERA GETS GRANT TO CONTINUE INSTITUTE’S WORK

The Dallas Opera is among 20 recipients of the second cycle of Innovation Grants from OPERA America, a national service organizaiton for opera. The $1.2 million in grants is funded by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

The Dallas Opera will use the grant to continue evaluating the sustainability and growth of its Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors, which is designed to cut down gender disparity on the conductor’s podium and to build a network of leaders, according to BroadwayWorld. Such topics as the role of the board, leadership development, personal branding, PR training, and effective artist management are covered under the institutes curriculum, the website said.

The grants invest up to $1.5 million a year in OPERA America’s Professional Company members, the organization said. They enable the opera companies to increase their commitment to experimentation and innovation, and to contribute to learning through the industry. 

HIGH-SPEED TRAIN EFFORT GET BOOST FROM FEDERAL GRANT

The North Texas effort to build high-speed trains connecting Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth got a boost recently with the approval by the Regional Transportation Council of $500,000 to continue studying the proposal.

The funding includes a $300,000 federal grant in addition to $200,000 from metro transportation agencies along the Interstate 35 corridor, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Gordon Dickson reported. The Regional Transportation Council is the official planning body for 16 North Texas counties.

AWARDS

UT DALLAS STUDENT’S AWARD-WINNING APP DETECTS WEAPONS ON CAMPUSES

iNotify, a smartphone-based app that sends notifications of weapons detected in places such as schools, was one of two winners recently at Richardson’s recent US Ignite Smart Gigabit Cities Application Challenge.

The app was created by Ashlesha Nesarikar, a computer science student at the University of Texas at Dallas. The other winner was the Emotive Virtual Reality Patient App with Real-Time Feedback developed by Marjorie Zielke, Ph.D. The app allows professors to observe medical students and virtual patient interaction in real time with a video feedback stream from the professor to the student.

Nesarikar’s app is a timely creation, following tragic recent school shootings, such as the one in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead and many more wounded.

The app uses artificial intelligence to scan and analyze schools’ security footage in real time, recognize weapons, and notify authorities immediately that there is an imminent threat on the school grounds. It provides a specific location on campus so that students, teachers, and staff can evacuate quickly to safe areas.

PARISH EPISCOPAL TEAM HONORED AT HUMAN EXPLORATION ROVER CHALLENGE

A team from Parish Episcopal School in Dallas received two honors in April from NASA at the 2018 Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Parish is a PreK-12th grade independent Episcopal school in Dallas. The school’s Team 1 received the AIAA Neil Armstrong Best Design Award in the High School Division, as well as the AIAA Best Report Award.

High school and college teams were challenged to design, build, and test human-powered roving vehicles inspired by the Apollo lunar missions and by future explorations to the moon, Mars, and beyond, NASA said in a release.

NASA said the second day of competition and the awards ceremony had to be cancelled because of severe weather in the area. The competition is hosted by the Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

26 TO BE HONORED IN WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY AWARDS

The Dallas Business Journal will honor 26 women May 22 in its fifth annual Women in Technology Awards.

The awards honor women who are making a difference in their workplaces through technology.

The publication said that three women — Robyn Brown of Bold Idea, Juliet Odima of S.T.E.A.M Achievers, and Janell Straach of the University of Texas at Dallas will receive the distinction of “Advocate.”

Find out more about the awards and who is being honored here.

ISTATION WINS AWARD AS BEST ACADEMIC MANAGEMENT WEBSITE

Dallas-based Istation, a provider of educational technology, won the BESSIE Award for best Academic Management Website last month in the Teacher Tools category in The ComputED Gazette’s 2018 Best Educational Software Awards.

The awards “target innovative and content-rich programs and websites that provide parents and teachers with the technology to foster educational execellence,” according to a release. The websites are judged on technical merit, academic content, subject approach, and system management.

SCHOLARSHIPS

STATE FAIR ISSUES OVER $600K IN SCHOLARSHIPS TO DISD STUDENTS

The State Fair of Texas has doled out more than $600,000 in college scholarships to 105 graduating seniors from five Dallas ISD schools.

The scholarships were from The State Fair of Texas Pete Schenkel Scholarship program. Each student received $6,000 scholarhips recognizing their academic performance and class ranking. The scholarship is named for Pete Schenkel, the form chairman of the State Fair of Texas.

To see who received scholarships, go here.

4 FEMALE STUDENTS WIN $20K COCA-COLA FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIPS

Four female high school students in North Texas are among the 30th class of Coca-Cola Scholars, and each has earned a $20,000 scholarship from the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, NBCDFW reported.

A total of 150 scholarships were handed out April 19 at Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

The DFW recipients are Shree Balaji of Liberty High School in Frisco, Lal Lawmi of Emmett J. Conrad High School in the Dallas ISD, Meghana Nadella of Allen High School, and Saylor Snowden of John H. Guyer High School in the Denton ISD.