FIRST Tech Challenge Dean's List Award

Imagine it, the FIRST World Championships and Festival. You are in America’s Ballroom, which is packed with teams, coaches and mentors, video cameras and photographers, and Dean Kamen. He’s speaking to you about the importance of STEM, and how you are the future. But he doesn’t mean “you” rhetorically or “you” as an audience member or “you” as a young adult. He literally means you, a Dean’s List Award Winner.

Alec Kumpf and Simran Parwani are both 2014 FIRST Robotics Competition Dean’s List winners. Since 2010, ten FRC team members each year have been on the stage in America’s Ballroom with Dean Kamen to receive the Dean’s List Award, meaning Simran and Alec are part of a group of fifty winners. That’s fifty out of almost five thousand finalists.  This year, there will be ten more FRC team members added to the ranks, and for the first time, ten FTC team members as well.

Alec onstage at the FIRST Dean's List Award ceremony

“The whole experience is priceless. Very few experiences rival the excitement of being called to the stage in America’s Ballroom at Championship,” says Alec. A first year student at Georgie Tech studying electrical engineering, Alec was a FIRST participant for seven years, both FLL and FRC. He plans to spend this year volunteering at Georgia events and eventually mentoring.

Simran is in Hong Kong where she is spending her senior year of high school studying. Her FRC team’s mascot is Rosie the Riveter and Simran invokes the “We Can Do It!” attitude in her own life. She hopes to find a local FIRST team to participate in while she is in Hong Kong. “Being on my robotics team inspired me to not accept the inequality I observe in the world, but to take the initiative to make a difference,” she says. That’s why she coached an FLL team her second year with FIRST.

Simran with her FRC team's two FLL teams.

Like Simran and Alec, Dean’s List winners are dedicated to FIRST as well as strong leaders on their teams and in their communities. They embody the spirit and principles of FIRST, Coopertition, and Gracious Professionalism. Qualities that FIRSThelped bring out in each of them.

“FIRST has taught me how to keep a calm head so I can keep making progress, how to delegate, to get everyone involved, and the importance of teaching others,” Alec states.

Simran notes, “I learned several business and technical skills, such as how to CAD, make presentations, and plan events. The diversity of the skills that I have learned have led me to be a well-rounded student.”

The Dean’s List winners get to participate in the Dean’s List Winners Summit, which Simran said was “memorable. Meeting the other Dean’s List Winners has redeemed my faith in the ability of my generation to be the problem solvers of tomorrow; I am so excited to see the innovations we will produce!”

Alec agrees and adds, “Nominate two people from your team every year! Every team has extraordinary students and every student has a chance at winning.” 

Simran and Alec are not two diamonds in a sea of stones; amazing people are everywhere, just waiting to sparkle. We know FIRST helps youth sparkle. We know FIRST inspires young people. We know FIRST engages youth in STEM activities and encourages more and more of them to pursue science, technology, and engineering careers. We know FIRSTteaches important life skills. We have known this for a long time, but we are still convincing people, still working to change the culture, still spreading the word. One young person at a time.

 

“Being a Dean’s List winner is an incredible responsibility, I am an ambassador for FIRST,” says Simran. 

In 2015, it might be you on the stage with Dean Kamen. For more information on the FIRST Dean’s List Award as well as Award criteria and instructions on how to nominate a team member, check out the Dean’s List Award website.


 Check out the 2015 FIRST Tech Challenge Dean's List Finalists!