The creation of a new museum exhibit, the production of a pilot TV episode, and the expansion of an electrical engineering course developed by an IEEE student branch are among the initiatives recently receiving support from the IEEE Foundation. At its June meeting, the foundation awarded grants totaling more than US $121 000 to seven projects, including these four.

The Women at Work Museum, in Attleboro, Mass., received $10 000 to mount a new exhibit, “Initiating and Sustaining Change,” opening on 3 November. The exhibit showcases the achievements of female engineers throughout history. The grant also will support programs that educate the public on engineering. For example, female engineers are scheduled to speak with students and the general public at Attleboro High School in the spring. Afterward, the audience will get the chance to meet the engineers at a reception in the museum.

A grant of $19 550 went to Stepping Stones for the Museum of the Future, at the Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil. The nonprofit museum promotes science and engineering to the public in one of the poorest regions of Brazil. The grant will fund a three-part program: a workshop to raise money and awareness about the museum, design of an online version of the museum in Portuguese, and scholarships to local students to research the history of Brazilian telecommunications.

“Nerd Girls,” a proposed series of documentary TV programs encouraging young women to consider careers in engineering-related fields, received a grant of $50 800 to film a pilot episode. The series is expected to follow a team of college women as they design and build a solar car. The show aims to change stereotypes of engineers as geeky and boring.

The Hands on Practical Electronics program created by the IEEE student branch at the University of California at Berkeley received $25 000. The branch plans to use the money to take the program—12 hands-on lessons that introduce electrical engineering to Berkeley students [see “Students Create Hands-on Electrical Engineering Course,” January 2007]—on the road to other schools. As word about it spread, the program attracted much interest from other IEEE branches. The UC Berkeley branch says it will use the grant money to cover the cost of holding a meeting in each IEEE region to explain to student representatives how to run the course, as well as the development of a Web site to house the course materials.

To learn more about the grants, or to find out how to apply for one, visit http://www.ieeefoundation.org.