Siemens Westinghouse Competition
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After Siemens AG purchased Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1997, it was under the impression that the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now the Intel Science Talent Search) would be theirs as well. When they discovered this was not the case and they ultimately lost the bidding to Intel, Siemens decided to create the Siemens Foundation to continue the tradition using the well-known Westinghouse name, calling the new competition the Siemens Westinghouse Competition (SWC), which is administered by the College Board.
The SWC retains many of the features of the old STS competition, including a $100,000 scholarship for the top research project. However, the SWC has a number of added dimensions, most notably the team portion and the regional finals level. The regional finals are held in cooperation with six partner universities, all of which are top research institutions: MIT, Georgia Tech, Stanford University, UT Austin, the University of Notre Dame, and Carnegie Mellon.
Each year, research reports submitted before an early-October deadline are subjected to a blind reading, after which up to 300 projects are selected as semifinalists in approximately three weeks. One week later, up to 30 individual regional finalists and regional finalist teams (2-3 students) are selected from across the nation, with a maximum of 5 finalists in each region. These students compete during the month of November at the partner university affiliated with their region for the honor of competing at the national level.
All regional finalists receive $1,000 and bronze medals. Regional winners receive $3,000 (individual) or $6,000 (total for teams), silver medals, and an all-expense paid trip to New York City, N.Y., during the first weekend of December to present their projects at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and compete for scholarships ranging from $10,000 to the coveted $100,000 grand prize. Each school with a regional winner receives $2000 for their math and science programs.
Daniar Hussain of Johnstown, PA and Steve Malliaris, of Winnetka, IL, were the first team winners of the SWC in 1999. Lisa Harris of New York was the first individual winner of the SWC in 1999.
