The Linux Foundation Announces 27 Recipients of LiFT Scholarships

Promising individuals from around the world receive the opportunity for training and certification that otherwise may be out of reach

PRAGUE – OPEN SOURCE SUMMIT EUROPE – October 24, 2017 – The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the recipients of its 2017 Linux Foundation Training (LiFT) Scholarships.

LiFT provides advanced open source training to existing and aspiring IT professionals from around the world.

This is the seventh year The Linux Foundation has awarded training scholarships. Seventy-five scholarships worth more than $168,000 have been awarded to date to current and aspiring IT professionals who may not otherwise be able to afford specialized training. Scholarship recipients receive a Linux Foundation training course and certification exam at no cost.

This year, The Linux Foundation received a record 1,238 applications for 14 scholarships – 2 each across 7 categories. The quality of applications in the Linux Newbies category was so high that the decision was made to award an additional 13 scholarships in that category, bringing the overall number of LiFT recipients this year to 27, the most ever awarded by The Linux Foundation.

Unsurprisingly due to the popularity of the free Intro to Linux course, the most popular category was Linux Newbies, followed by SysAdmin SuperStars and Academic Aces. Applications were received from six continents from applicants ranging in age from 15 to 65 – with an average age of 28 – reflecting that all types of people from around the world are interested in quality open source training opportunities.

“There are countless individuals around the world with a passion for open source, but many lack the resources to grow and participate more in the community,” said Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin.

“Programs like LiFT scholarships help these promising individuals get involved and contribute back, making the community even stronger. The hope is this creates a ripple effect, enabling them to share their knowledge and bring even more talented individuals into the open source movement.”

Scholarship recipients for 2017 across each category are:

Academic Aces

• Asirifi Charles, 22, Ghana
• Camilo Andres Cortes Hernandez, 31, Colombia

Developer Do Gooder

• Badri Basnet, 65, Australia
• Pedro Guarderas, 33, Ecuador

Linux Kernel Guru

• Bhumika Goyal, 22, India
• Mohammed Al-Samman, 25, Egypt

Linux Newbies

• Alexander Anderson, 28, United Kingdom
• Fatma Aymaz, 28, Turkey
• Jules Bashizi Irenge, 36, United Kingdom
• Cruzita Thalia Cabunoc, 21, Phillippines
• Dimitris Grendas, 27, Greece
• Valentin Ilco, 25, Moldova
• Andreea Ilie, 28, Romania
• Carlo Martini, 27, Italy
• Emmanuel Ongogo, 24, Kenya
• Darius Palmer, 47, United States
• Andi Rowley, 25, United States
• Sara Santos, 46, Portugal
• Sokunrotanak Srey, 28, Cambodia
• George Udosen, 42, Nigeria
• Glenda Walter, 28, Dominica
• SysAdmin Super Star
• Omar Aaziz, 39, United States
• Leonardo Silva, 41, Brazil

Teens-in-Training

• Vinícius Almeida, 15, Brazil
• Sydney Dykstra, 18, United States

Women in Open Source

• Jona Azizaj, 24, Albania
• Marie Drottar, 62, United States

The Linux Foundation supports a variety of community initiatives and organizations to help advance free and open source software and increase diversity in technology and the open source community. By providing training and event scholarships, and working with organizations such as Women Who Code and Goodwill, The Linux Foundation helps to achieve its goal of increasing diversity in technology and the open source community.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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